Podcast appearances and mentions of mack stiles

Tanner and Austin sit down with Mack Stiles to discuss Evangelism. This is a two part episode so keep your eyes and ears open for part two coming soon!

Tanner and Austin sit down with Mack Stiles to discuss Evangelism. This is a two part episode so keep your eyes and ears open for part two coming soon!

Introducing a new podcast from 9Marks—A Storm in the Desert.In 1972, at the base of a Swiss mountain, God saved a man named Mack Stiles. Two decades later, John Folmar “accepted Jesus as his personal Savior”; he doesn't know even where he first heard that phrase. What happens in the next quarter-century is a testament to God's commitment to use faithful, ordinary ministry to effect fruitful, extraordinary change. A Storm in the Desert tells this story.The first act in our story covers a lot of ground—from an icy crevice on a Swiss mountain to a below-freezing night capped off by the fiery Billy Graham. It involves a surprising conversion that eventually leads to a transatlantic flight on an empty plane. This is the story of Mack and Leeann.Subscribe to our new podcast, A Storm in the Desert.

A talk on evangelism given by Mack Stiles

A talk given by Mack Stiles

Acts 20:17-38 | Mack Stiles | January 31st, 2025

I LOVED talking to Mack. I've seen him speak at CROSS con many times and it was a pleasure sitting down and discussing missions. 10/10 recco this episode. If this podcast has ever been impactful for you, I'd be thrilled if you would donate a coffee or two at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com/chatsunderthesun⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Follow Mack on the Twitter @MackStiles I am @itsthevalk on Insta Love you all.  Jake

Missions Talk is back for a new season! In this episode, Ryan Robertson and Mack Stiles talk with Andy Johnson about how the university students have the unique opportunities to share the gospel and fulfill the Great Commission overseas.

Brian and Jimmy continue their discussion on J. Mack Stiles 10 things he longs to see in a Culture of Evangelism. https://9marks.myshopify.com/products/evangelism-by-j-mack-stiles?_pos=2&_sid=b1f1328ca&_ss=r

The local church can equip missionaries.The role of the local church is not merely to assess but also to actively equip missionaries. We may not know alot about specific cultures, learning languages, or even historical issues that shape a people's attitudes toward thegospel. But the local church is the perfect place—God's appointed place—to grow Christian character, encouragegeneral fruitfulness, and transmit sound Bible doctrine. We shouldn't let a few things we might not know keepus from faithfully and assertively stewarding the responsibility for missions God has given churches. Churchesare where faithful missionaries are made. If our churches do a good job in our basic responsibilities, then wehave all we need to raise up godly missionaries.The church should support those it sends.Not only should our churches send missionaries wisely, but we should support them appropriately. And oursupport for workers should be as ample as God's Word enjoins. As we commit to send or support missionaries,we should expect our giving to be serious, significant, and sacrificial. Whether we give directly to missionariesor through some cooperative sending agency, our goal should be workers amply supplied so that they lacknothing. The church can care for missionaries by keeping in touch.The foundation of a congregation's ability to care for its missionaries is regular communication. We can't meetneeds we don't know about, and it's hard to meet pastoral needs if relationships atrophy. Thankfully, it's probablynever been easier to keep up relationships from afar. With email and Skype, there is generally no reason to fallout of touch with workers. But it still takes effort. Busyness, time-zone differences, and sometimes securityconcerns can push these calls off the agenda. Church leaders should consider setting a regular monthly time whenthey will call each supported worker. In addition, they might find another member of the church who is willingto keep in regular contact with each missionary and occasionally report back to the congregation.For more information about this group, please visit their website at reformationboise.com. Every weekday at 8:00am you can listen to The Gospel for Life on 94.1 The Voice in the Treasure Valley, Idaho, USA. If you have a question, comment, or even a topic suggestion for the Pastors, you can email them. There is only one rule: Be Kind! Phone: (208) 991-3526E-mail: thegospelforlifeidaho@gmail.comPodcast website: https://941thevoice.com/podcasts/gospel-for-life/

In this episode, Mack Stiles offers a guide to evangelism to those who feel scared and unprepared. J. Mack Stiles is the director of Messenger Ministries Inc, an organization that promotes healthy missions. Mack and his family lived in the Middle East for twenty years, where he was the founder and director of the Fellowship of Christian UAE Students (FOCUS) in the United Arab Emirates. He is also the author of 'How Do I Get Started in Evangelism?' from Crossway. Read the full transcript of this episode. ❖ Listen to “Help! I'm Afraid to Share My Faith” with Isaac Adams: Apple | Spotify | YouTube If you enjoyed this episode be sure to leave us a review, which helps us spread the word about the show!

Gossiping the Gospel – June 10We will do so by utilizing an article by Andy Johnson entitled, 10 Things You Should Know about Missions andthe Local Church [Crossway – 10 Things series]For more information about this group, please visit their website at reformationboise.com. Every weekday at 8:00am you can listen to The Gospel for Life on 94.1 The Voice in the Treasure Valley, Idaho, USA. If you have a question, comment, or even a topic suggestion for the Pastors, you can email them. There is only one rule: Be Kind! Phone: (208) 991-3526E-mail: thegospelforlifeidaho@gmail.comPodcast website: https://941thevoice.com/podcasts/gospel-for-life/

In this episode of Missions Talk, Mack Stiles and Ryan Robertson interview Sam Masters, the Rector of Seminario Bíblico William Carey, about William CareyRelated resources:William Carey by S Pearce CareyThe Missionary Fellowship of William Carey by Michael HaykinAn Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens by William Carey

Gossiping the Gospel – Evangelism and Mission in Everyday LifeBased upon 10 Things You Should Know about Evangelism by J. Mack Stiles https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-things-you-should-know-about-evangelism/Define what we mean by “Evangelism” The proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed.  The goal of evangelism is to participate in God's work of bringing salvation through faith in Christ as enabled by the Holy Spirit. Traditionally, Reformed theologians see no contradiction between God's predestination of the elect and the necessity of sharing the gospel with unbelievers through preaching, conversation and relationships. Reformed evangelism has historically emphasized God's sovereignty, the efficacious work of the Holy Spirit and the responsibility of God's people to invite others to hear and respond to the call of the gospel.  Objection: Since God has predestined his people for salvation in Christ, why evangelize?Helpful Articles found at Crossway.org “Ten Things series…” Ten things we should know about evangelism1. Our evangelistic efforts must stem from a biblical understanding of evangelism.2. Evangelism is often the label given to things that are not evangelism.Is sharing your testimony evangelism? Is defending the Christian faith evangelism? How about doing good deeds for the oppressed? 3. Evangelism entails teaching the gospel first and foremost.God teaches us the gospel through his Word; we cannot do it on our own, So it stands to reason that we must speak and teach the gospel to others: the truth about who God is, why we are in the mess we are  in, what Jesus came to do, and how we are to respond to him. It's no wonder that Paul often described his evangelistic ministry as a teaching ministry.4. Evangelism aims to persuade.We want to see people move from darkness to light. Having that aim helps us know what things to talk about and what things to lay aside.  Understanding this guards us from false conversions, which are the assisted suicide of the church.5. Evangelism flourishes in a culture of evangelism.For more information about this group, please visit their website at reformationboise.com. Every weekday at 8:00am you can listen to The Gospel for Life on 94.1 The Voice in the Treasure Valley, Idaho, USA. If you have a question, comment, or even a topic suggestion for the Pastors, you can email them. There is only one rule: Be Kind! Phone: (208) 991-3526E-mail: thegospelforlifeidaho@gmail.comPodcast website: https://941thevoice.com/podcasts/gospel-for-life/

Brian and Jimmy discuss 10 yearnings that J. Mack Stiles writes about in his book "Evangelism" on the Culture of Evangelism we all would like to see. https://9marks.myshopify.com/collections/9marks-publications/products/evangelism-by-j-mack-stiles 

In this episode of Missions Talk, Ryan Robertson and Mack Stiles interview Rachel Ware, the Director of Mobilization at Reaching and Teaching, about how local churches and pastors can help aspiring missionaries to discern their calling.

In this episode of Missions Talk, Ryan Robertson and Mack Stiles talk with Brooks Buser and Michael Lawrence on the doctrine of conversion and how it relates to missions.

This breakout was given at CROSS CON24. To learn more, visit crosscon.com.

In this episode of Missions Talk, Ryan Robertson and Mack Stiles interview Luke Womack and Matt Sonke from Airo Missions about the potential hurdles for future missionaries and how the church can help overcome them.

In this episode of Missions Talk, Ryan Robertson interviews Mack Stiles about Great Commission Council and how pastors and churches could benefit from GCC.https://www.greatcommissioncouncil.org/

Welcome to another thought-provoking episode of Premier Unbelievable! This week, brace yourselves for a captivating dialogue between two individuals with starkly divergent perspectives on Christianity, the existence of God, and the very essence of truth.  On one side we have Mack Stiles — director of Messenger Ministries Inc, Podcaster and seasoned pastor and author of the intriguing new book, "The Truth About Lies: Why Jesus is More Relevant Than You Think." Sharing the virtual stage and returning to Unbelievable is the outspoken atheist, Dan Barker, who was a Christian pastor for many years before making headlines by announcing on Oprah Winfrey's show that he had "kicked the religion habit". Dan later co-founded the Freedom from Religion Foundation.  Join our host, Andy Kind, as he navigates this riveting debate, delving into the profound questions surrounding truth, science, morality, the nature of God, and the complexities of the human condition. For Mack Stiles: follow Mack on X @MackStiles Mission Talks Podcas: https://www.9marks.org/tag/missions-talk/ Messenger Ministries: https://www.messengerministries.com/about For Dan Barker: follow Dan on X @danbarker Freedom from Religion: https://ffrf.org/about/staff-board/item/38960-dan-barker Related shows For Dan Barker and Martin Kuhrt discussing whether the God of the Bible is a capriciously malevolent, misogynistic, sadomasochistic bully: https://www.premierunbelievable.com/unbelievable/unbelievable-is-the-god-of-the-bible-a-capriciously-malevolent-misogynistic-sadomasochistic-bully-dan-barker-vs-martin-kuhrt/11653.article Find out more • Subscribe to the Unbelievable? podcast: https://pod.link/267142101 • More shows, free eBook & newsletter: https://premierunbelievable.com • For live events: http://www.unbelievable.live • For online learning: https://www.premierunbelievable.com/training • Support us in the USA: http://www.premierinsight.org/unbelievableshow • Support us in the rest of the world: https://www.premierunbelievable.com/donate

In the western world, our view of missions can get pretty rose-tinted. But what does it actually look like to evangelize, whether in our local contexts or in supposedly hostile foreign environments?In today's episode, Jonathan is joined by missionary and author Mack Stiles to discuss a biblical understanding of mission work, the (sometimes complicated ) calling of a missionary to the field, and why relationship is at the heart of effective evangelism.If you enjoyed this episode be sure to leave us a review on wherever you listen!  Also remember to share with friends and family; both of those actions will help us spread the word about the show.To learn more about Mack's book "The Truth About Lies", please visit either our US or UK based sites.For more information about the Great Commission Council, click here.

In this episode of Missions Talk, Mack Stiles and Ryan Robertson interview Tim Hamer and Aaron Menikoff on visiting missionaries overseas.

What does a Campus Ministry look like overseas and where does the local church fit in? In this episode of Missions Talk, Mack Stiles and Ryan Robertson interview Nathan, who is a director of a campus ministry in the Middle East.

Pastor Mike, Pastor Todd, and producer Jordan have a discussion about evangelism, specifically from the framework of Elliot Clark's book, "Evangelism as Exiles."-"Evangelism as Exiles" by Elliot Clark: https://www.amazon.com/Evangelism-Exiles-Life-Mission-Strangers/dp/057846201X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=P0MI63FG052S&keywords=evangelism+as+exiles&qid=1685568681&sprefix=evangelism+as+exile%2Caps%2C233&sr=8-1-"Evangelism" by J. Mack Stiles: https://www.amazon.com/Evangelism-Church-Building-Healthy-Churches-ebook/dp/B00IFG093E/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PES8O2G75L5F&keywords=evangelism+mack+stiles&qid=1685568840&sprefix=evangelism+ma%2Caps%2C251&sr=8-1-"Before You Share Your Faith" by Matt Smethurst: https://www.amazon.com/Before-You-Share-Your-Faith/dp/1913896846/ref=sr_1_1?crid=203Q5OMRSWV9X&keywords=before+you+share+your+faith&qid=1685568865&sprefix=before+you+share+your+faith%2Caps%2C179&sr=8-1-"Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God" by J.I. Packer: https://www.amazon.com/Evangelism-Sovereignty-God-J-Packer/dp/083083799X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3VIQ66UYOTYS5&keywords=evangelism+and+the+sovereignty+of+god+by+j.i.+packer&qid=1685568881&sprefix=evangelism+and+th%2Caps%2C168&sr=8-1

Ein Seminar von Mack Stiles auf der Hauptkonferenz 2023 in Hamburg.

It's easy to feel regret when we experience missed opportunities, but come listen and see how God responds to this.   Listen to this episode on YouTube! https://youtu.be/hzuTnUlkgw0   Ethan Luhman's Article   Mack Stiles' Article   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Listen on these platforms:

Ein Vortrag von Mack Stiles auf der Hauptkonferenz 2023 in Hamburg.

In this episode of Missions Talk, Ryan Robertson and Mack Stiles interview pastors about why the local church matters for missions work.

Recent years have been filled with catastrophes and worldwide scares. In light of it all, where can we find hope? Listen this week as Mack Stiles opens our Global Outreach Conference and explains where we can find it.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches through a basic outline of the gospel message to equip and exhort Christians to share the good news of Jesus Christ. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - So, what is the greatest, most urgent, most pressing need facing the human race? I suppose if you ask that question all over the world, you would get different answers depending on where you were. If you were in Ukraine, it would probably be the Russian invasion that would dominate people's responses. Their city's laid waste, live shattered, many people that they love have died. If you lived in Shanghai, it would probably be the COVID lockdown causing the already tyrannical Chinese government to become even more oppressive, quarantining millions for weeks in their homes, forcibly relocating hundreds of thousands of others to health centers that they're not free to leave. Perhaps the most under-reported humanitarian crisis of our day is the famine in South Yemen. Most of you probably have heard absolutely nothing about it. COVID and Ukraine has pushed it away from consciousness, but for the last six years, a brutal civil war has been going on there, pushing five million people, literally to the brink of starvation, another 16 million coming closer and closer to it every day. At a much lesser level, a friend of mine this week lives in Abilene, Texas, and there's a very dangerous wildfire going on there. He was looking at an app on his phone while we were at our meeting together, seeing where it was, what the boundaries were, because it was getting perilously close to his own home and to that of his sister. So if you live in Texas, maybe that concern would dominate your mind. Perhaps many Americans would look at the economy, skyrocketing cost of gasoline, of groceries, the inflation that's the worst we've seen, I think in 40 years, others would cite the baby formula supply chain crisis. I could go on and on. We live in a hurting world, very much so, but as tragic and pressing as all of these are not one of them can be the answer to my question. The most pressing, the most urgent, most consequential issue facing the human race today is spiritual lostness. Living life under the wrath of an omnipotent holy God, the danger of spending eternity in hell that far outweighs all of these things I've listed, and a thousand other crises, because all of those are temporal, but the loss of a human soul is eternal. This includes the people that we live around right here in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, the Triangle area, most tragically because lost people all over the world have no faith. They don't see the imminent danger that they're in at every moment from the wrath of God. They don't know what will happen to them on Judgment Day. They don't know the remedy, the good news, the only remedy that God has given to the human race for this greatest problem, and that is, the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what we're going to swim in today, that's what we're going to talk about today. Friends, we Christians have the privilege of being the sowers of the eternal seed of the gospel, and how joyful we are when we see that seed take root in good hearts that are prepared by the Holy Spirit resulting in the eternal life for that person, how joyful we are to be part of that process. This past week, I was at my trustee meeting with the International Mission Board. My favorite part of those meetings every time is when the mission leaders from various affinity groups around the world give stories of the effects of the gospel in people's lives. One of the mission leaders told about a Muslim woman in Indonesia, a highly educated professor at a university there. This woman had the same dream for seven consecutive nights. In that dream, she was on one side of a locked door and Jesus Christ was on the other side, but she couldn't get through the door. Seven straight nights, the same dream. It led her, it forced her, to find a Christian woman that she knew there in her city, to go explain the dream and to find out more. That Christian woman led this Muslim professor to faith in Christ, by sharing the gospel, “God, Man, Christ, Response” that we're going to walk through this morning. She shared the gospel and she came to a genuine faith in Christ. That night she had a similar dream, but significantly different. She came to the door, Jesus Christ on the other side, unlocked the door, open it and she walked through it into what she described as the most beautiful place she'd ever seen. That's a better dream. Imagine being that Christian woman who had the privilege of leading this lady to faith in Christ, but that's not all. This woman was immediately savagely persecuted by her Muslim family. This happens all over the Muslim world when people come to faith in Christ. Her mother slapped her in the face physically, and said, “if you continue as a Christian, you can no longer be our daughter.” The woman courageously responded, “I would rather lose my parents than my savior.” Now we Christians are going to spend eternity with that woman and other people like her. I'm looking forward to hearing all the stories, aren't you, in heaven? How exciting that's going to be. Isn't it incredible that we, as evangelists, as missionaries, get to plant the eternal seed of the gospel in people's hearts? Don't you want to be part of that work, have stories to tell? We're making our way sequentially through the Gospel of Mark. The central theme in the Gospel of Mark is stated right from the first verse, Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the son of God.” It's a theme statement for the entire gospel. Jesus, as the son of God, is the essence of the good news to the human race, especially when we understand that he came to earth to save sinners from their sin. Essential to that good news, that gospel is the understanding of sin as rebellion against God, the king. So Jesus begins his public ministry and gives this timeless call in Mark 1:15, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the gospel.” Soon after that, he begins recruiting people to join him in his evangelistic missionary work. He recruits some fishermen and says, “Come follow me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” By the end of the Gospel of Mark, he has died for sins, has been raised from the dead, and commissions his church to go out and preach the gospel[Mark 15, 16]. He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news, the gospel, to all creation. Whoever believes the gospel and is baptized will be saved, saved from hell, from condemnation. Whoever does not believe the gospel will be condemned.” “Jesus, as the son of God, is the essence of the good news to the human race, especially when we understand that he came to earth to save sinners from their sin.” In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we are moving through it and we've come to the great chapter 4, and it begins with the parable, the seed and the soils. We've said that the focus in the parable is on the soils. They represent four different heart responses to the gospel. The hardened path represents the individual who hears the gospel and doesn't understand it at all, and Satan instantly snatches away the gospel. The stony ground here represents those who hear the word and initially respond with joy, but since they have no root, whenever trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed sown among the thorns represent those who hear the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the seed, making it unfruitful. Then the good soil, the last soil, represents a noble and good heart that hears the word, understands it, accepts it, and by perseverance produces a harvest 30, 60, even a hundred times, what was sown. When I first preached on that parable several weeks ago, I said just because someone hears the word and rejects it, doesn't mean that we've done something wrong, that we're preaching the wrong message, that there's something in our methodology that needs to change. I said that there's a temptation to re-engineer the seed of the gospel to make it more popular. Years ago during a presidential campaign, I was watching a debate that was going on. The network had gotten a focus group, they called it, of people of various different political persuasion across the spectrum. They were going to watch the debate, and they had a device in their hands which they could use to respond in real-time to what was being said by the candidates. If they twisted the knob to the right, it was favorable. If they twisted it to the left, it was unfavorable. The further you twisted in each direction, the more strongly you felt about that, more strongly favorable, or strongly unfavorable. Each of these participants in the focus group had a colored line going across the screen, superimposed on the debate as it was going on, “favorable, more favorable, really favorable or I don't like that” at every moment, all the way through. I would imagine both campaigns would be very interested in that recording of their views. They'd be able to go back and look at the message and talk to their candidate about tailoring the message to make it more palatable to the electorate. Some politicians do their work that way. Friends, this is the very thing we must never do when it comes to the gospel, we cannot reengineer the seed. We cannot take the gospel message back into the laboratory of our intellect and our imaginations and creativity and tweak it. It’s something we must never do. Paul said, in Galatians 1:11-12, “I want you to know brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” Earlier in that same chapter, Galatians 1:6-9, Paul said, “I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned. As we have already said now, so now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel, other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. In that context, Paul is addressing some Galatian false teachers who are re-engineering the gospel seed. They're trying to change its basic message. Paul said, when we do that, we're preaching something that is no gospel at all. In every generation of church history, all twenty centuries, false teachers have sought to do that very thing, to re-engineer the gospel seed, turning it into a man-made gospel that is no gospel at all. They take the seed of the gospel found in the New Testament, they bring it into the laboratory of their own intellects and imaginations and creativity, and they come up with something different to make it more palatable to the human audience. If we're going to be faithful to the Lord, we must preach the true gospel. We have to sow the good seed of the eternal gospel. So this morning I want to walk through a basic outline of the gospel message. We publish it in your bulletin week, after week, after week, and I want to walk through it. It has a four part outline, “God, Man, Christ, Response.” I know that there are many good and healthy ways to summarize the gospel message. I don't think this is the only way to do it. However, I do think that if you are going to preach the true gospel, in whatever approach you take, you're going to say healthy, biblical things about God, you're going to say true things about the human condition. You're going to talk about Jesus Christ and you're going to call for a response. So however you do that, you're going to be doing those things, if you're preaching the true gospel. Central to Evangelism: Getting the Gospel Message Right Central to the evangelistic effort, as we've been saying, is getting the gospel message right. Biblical evangelism is not about technique. It's so easy to think of evangelistic training as tactics and techniques like learning to sell insurance from last year's leading regional sales experts. You bring this guy in and he'll teach you the sales techniques. That is not what's going on here at all. Rather evangelism is a rescue mission for people who are spiritually dead, they're dead in their transgressions while they live, they're living, dead. It's more like a CPR effort, mouth to mouth resuscitation, something like that. Someone pulled out of the pool and is turning blue by the side, and you have seconds to work with, but it's even worse than that. They're already dead in their transgressions and sins, and they have no idea how much longer they're going to be physically alive. There's only one power on earth that can resurrect them from the dead spiritually, and that is the gospel. Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” This timeless gospel message can do it. It does do it. It raises people from the dead spiritually. Now we don't do that, we deliver the words of the gospel, but the Spirit has power while that delivering is going on to raise people from the dead spiritually. By the way, all of you who are Christians, that've happened to you already. Praise God for your resurrection, spiritual resurrection. Now we get to be part of seeing it happen in other people's lives. “Central to the evangelistic effort, as we've been saying, is getting the gospel message right.” Behind my approach today is the belief that we need constant reminders in the gospel. My strategy with the pulpit here is to go sequentially through books of the Bible, through passage, after passage, but I'm also committed to preach the gospel every single week. I just don't do it as the only thing I do that week. This week, this is the only thing I'm doing. Next week we'll be back to the usual process. I'll give you about five minutes of gospel, the rest will be the text, whatever it is we're walking through, but I never, ever want anybody coming here to this church, wondering what must I do to be saved, and they don't know what to do when they leave. This week, we're going to go carefully through the gospel. We're going to remind ourselves; Paul thought reminders are vital. I Corinthians 15:1-2, “Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel, you're saved if you'll firmly to the word I preached to you.” So I want to remind you, as Paul said, about the gospel. I think we should do the same. Why? First, because it's vital that each and every one of you hearing my voice has believed this gospel for your own salvation. You're going to spend eternity in either heaven or hell, based on your response to this gospel message. So, that's top priority. Secondly, because the more the evangelists and missionaries themselves have drunken the sweetness of the gospel, the more effective evangelist and missionaries are going to be. Thirdly, we need reminders because we're never done with the gospel message. We don't graduate from the gospel, saying “that's elementary school. We're in graduate school now, we're beyond gospel.” No, you'll never be beyond the gospel. Tim Keller said that the gospel is not the ABCs of Christianity, but the A to Z of Christianity. Fourth, we need reminders because we forget, we forget the gospel message. Fifth, we need reminders because there's a difference between recognizing the gospel when you hear it and being able to put it into words yourself. We want all of you to get to that second stage where you can actually articulate the gospel yourself. Not just say, yeah, that's it, that's the gospel, when someone else says it. Six, we need reminders, because we're under constant pressure from the world to flesh and the devil to drift away from the gospel, individually and as a church, it's happened time and time and time and time and time again to local churches. We can't merely assume that the gospel will be around decades from now. We have to fight for it daily. As Hebrews 2:1 says, “We must pay more careful attention to what we have heard, [that's the gospel], lest we drift away.” These are the reasons why we need to be reminded of the gospel. Also, the elders have set before the church, a lasting church- wide goal concerning this issue, evangelism. Our prayer has been, and continues to be, that God would pour out the Holy Spirit on this church resulting in a durable culture of evangelism, as demonstrated by creative and bold evangelistic efforts on the part of the church members, resulting in people genuinely converted, growing in faith in Christ. That's what we want to see, a durable culture of evangelism. This sermon fits into that overall goal. God-Man-Christ-Response Now the outline, you've already heard it. The four part outline is simple, “God, Man, Christ, Response.” You're going to say things about God, about the human race, about Jesus Christ, and you're going to call for a response if you preach the gospel. Let's unfold it a little more. The approach that we've recommended for years is to look at the offices of God, of what he does. We want a God- centered gospel. One of the ways we understand that is by understanding the offices, or the roles he takes toward the human race. The four offices in this first section are creator, king, law giver and judge— creator, king, law giver and judge. Furthermore, there's a logic; because God is the creator, he has the right to rule as king. In order to rule as king, he must give laws by which he governs his kingdom. Then he evaluates us based on our obedience to his law. So there's a logic to it, from creator to king, to law giver, to judge. The second section, man or humanity, the human race. We link back to the four offices we just talked about. Man is created by God, the creator. We are rebellious against God, the king, we are transgressors of God's laws, and we're under judgment by God, the judge. So, that's the problem, that's the issue that we face. The third point is that Jesus Christ is the solution to that problem. Jesus Christ gives us the fifth office that we'll focus on, and that is God, the savior, God, the savior. God alone can save us from God and from his wrath, and he does through Jesus Christ. When we're preaching the gospel, and we get to the Christ section, we're effectively giving a miniature biography of Jesus. We're tracing out his life from his birth, through his sinlessness and his miracles, to his substitutionary atoning death and his resurrection. You're tracing those things out. You have to talk about those things or you're not preaching the gospel. So we walk through those things: Jesus' supernatural life, his incarnation, he is the God-man, he is sinless and he did miracles. That's his life. But the centerpiece of why he came to earth is to die in our place, under the wrath of God, substitutionary atonement is the title that we give it. Jesus dying in our place, taking the wrath of God, and also giving to us his perfect righteousness by which we survive Judgment Day, a substitutionary death. Then we must talk about his saving resurrection. The fact that he rose from the dead physically, because they need to believe this. They need to be able to confess with their mouth, “Jesus is the Lord”, and believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead. If you look at the book of Acts, the apostles always, always, always refer to the resurrection, so we want to preach the resurrection and we want to talk about Jesus' salvation gifts. What does he offer us? He offers full forgiveness of sins, past, present and future. He offers us eternal life, a quality, a richness of life now on earth, but then both a quality and an eternality of life forever in heaven, he offers us eternal life. That's what he has come to give us. Then finally, a response. You must call, as an evangelist, you must call for a response. This isn't just an interesting story. No, no, no. This is the gospel. This is the only hope you have of surviving Judgment Day, you must respond. You, as the evangelist, as a missionary, need to bring the people to a response. “What do you think about what I've said? Are you ready to trust in Jesus as your savior?” You call for a response, this is something that the person must do, and then some things that they must not do. So what they must do, as you've already heard in Mark 1:15, is repent and believe the gospel. They need to repent, they need to turn away from their sins and turn to God, willing to serve him as their king, that's repentance. They need to believe that Jesus will save them, that Jesus is a powerful savior, and that if they trust in him, their sins will be forgiven and he will welcome them into heaven, that they are trusting in Jesus. So repent and believe, that's what they must do. What they must not do is to try to work for it, to try to earn their salvation. They need to understand that salvation is by grace, not by works. We want to make that very clear. The religions all over the world are religions of self-effort. If people are alarmed about their concern, they might try to go do some good things. They must not do this. They must not trust in their own works, they must not wait for it. “If today you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts.” You don't know that you'll be alive tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation.” You want to press them that they must respond as soon as they can, as they're hearing the gospel now. So, that's outline “light.” Now you're thinking, we're going to get into outline “heavy.” Yes. How much of this do I have to memorize? As much as you want, but the basic outline is what you need to do. What I want to do is I want to marry it to scripture verses, because scripture has power. The Bible has converting power. The more of the scripture you can weave together in your gospel presentation, the better. Some of the verses you already know that you don't know that you know them, you do. When I cite them, it's like, “yeah, yeah, I know that one.” Others, you may have to work to memorize and get ready. Let's walk through it. First God, the creator. Do you have any idea of a good Bible verse on God creating everything? There's one of these verses, at least I know you know: Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” As we begin sharing the gospel, especially in an ever increasingly pagan America, you can't start from a basic Judeo-Christian knowledge, they don't have it. But what they do have is experience living in a physical world. You can do this with international scholars that come from atheistic countries, you start with creation. You talk about sunrises and sunsets and beautiful skies and starry nights and powerful oceans and mighty rivers and scenic vistas and animals and birds, eagles, cattle, and human beings. The fact that God made everything. That in him, we live and move and have our being. Saturate that time with God, the creator, the evidence of God is around them all the time. God created all things. Now it stands to reason if God created all things, he should be and is king over all things as well. He rules and reigns over all things. His throne is set at the center of the universe and all things revolve around that throne. God, the creator of all things is the king of all things. Now let's stop and let me talk about this. This is the fundamental problem that they have. They don't want to yield to God's kingly reign. This, I say they must do, or they're not going to be saved. They have to take Jesus's yolk upon them, his kingly yolk. They have to submit to his kingly rule. This is not optional. They need to understand the throne of God set at the center of the universe. God, the king, rules over all things. Psalm 47:7 is not a familiar verse to you, but it's a very easy one, “God is king of all the earth.” There you go. That's as simple as it gets. The hardest part about that verse is remembering the reference, but just that's a verse. How many other verses could you find that talk about the kingship of almighty God? Because God is king and reigns over his kingdom, he is a lawgiver. Here I would commend to you that you memorize a simple outline of the 10 commandments, and that you also memorize the two great commandments, the Ten Commandments and the two great commandments are essential to a healthy gospel presentation. If they don't understand the law of God, they will not be convicted of their sins, they will not know why they need a savior. They'll think they don't need a savior, but the law of God has convicting power. I think you could turn to any of a variety of laws, but the Ten Commandments seem to be set apart in scripture as unique and special and powerful. So you could memorize a simple outline, “ I am the Lord, your God, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make any idols or worship any idols. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.” It’s a very simple outline. Exodus 20 is more involved, but that's just a simple outline, just knowing the 10 commandments. Not only that, you want to circle back as Jesus did with the Sermon on the Mount, and look at two commandments in particular he talks about: “ You have heard that it was said you shall not murder, but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother is in danger of the fire of hell. And you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus is talking about heart sins. Most people make it through the world not murdering anyone, but no one makes it through without hateful anger in their hearts toward others. Many people make it through the world never literally physically committing adultery, but no one makes it through without lust. What's interesting is the 10th Commandment is just being applied back to the other nine. The 10th Commandment is about coveting. What organ do you use to covet? Your heart. It's something inside. No human government could ever make a law against coveting because there's no way to enforce it, or even know it's happening, but God can. What that means is God is looking at your heart. Jesus just takes that in his logical with all the 10 commandments, all of them are hard issues, all of them. Then the two great commandments, whereas the 10 commandments, nine of the 10 are negative, “You shall not. You shall not. You shall not. You shall not.” The positive one, Honor your father and mother.” Meet someone that tells you that they did that. There was that rich young ruler who claimed to have honored his father and mother. Jesus could have whistled in the father and mother and say, “Tell me about this kid when he was a teenager.” Well, how did that go? Positive commands are harder than negative ones. Jesus said the two great commandments are, “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” That means every moment of your life, with every fiber of your being that you will be filled with love for God and show it by obeying him and serving him and worshiping him, and doing what pleases him every moment of your entire life. The second commandment is like it, horizontally, “You'll love your neighbor as you do yourself.” The way you feed and clothe and care for yourself and panther yourself and prefer yourself and... Do that for others the same way you do it for yourself. Who does that? Do you not see how the 10 Commandments understood properly, as Jesus does from the Sermon in the Mount, plus the two commandments, as Jesus said, all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments, will snag every sinner and show them their sin. You as the evangelist, you need to do that law work. You need to slow down and go into that, and talk about the laws by which the king of the universe governs. Not only is God lawgiver, he is also a judge. Many verses teach this, Psalm 96:13 says, “The Lord comes to judge the earth.” He will judge the earth with equity and righteousness. God is judge. God is also holy, Habakkuk 1:13, “ Your[God] eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrong.” He's not going to tolerate anything on judgment day. So, that's the God section. Now the man section, the humanity section, the human race. Man is created by God, the creator. You know this verse as well, Genesis 1:27, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them.” We're created in the image of God by God. We are created to be like God, to know God, to love God and to serve God. That's what we were created for. However, we are rebellious against God, the king. Universally rebellious, Romans 3:10-12 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one, no one who understands, no one who seeks God, all have turned away. They've together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one.” If all that's too much to memorize, go with Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” I like Romans 3:10-12, because it's more detailed, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” We are rebellious against the 10 Commandments and the two Great Commandments. Because of that, we're under judgment by God, the judge. And judgment day is coming. It's our job as evangelist to make the invisible as if it were visible so that they can see it. They're going to be arraigned before the throne and give an account for everything done in their bodies, everyone is. As Jesus said in Matthew 12:36, “I tell you that men will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.” It’s a very powerful verse for evangelism, memorize it. The penalty, the wage, for our sin is death. “The wages of sin is death”, [Roman 6:23] ,that is eternity in hell. Jesus clearly warned about eternity in hell. So the key question is how can a sinful person enter heaven, where God allows no sin? As you're sharing the gospel in doing this, they should, at some point, they're going to start saying things like, “well, nobody's perfect. Everybody does these things.” They're going to be saying out of their own mouth, the thing the Bible says, everybody's sinful, but they're saying it from a perspective of God wouldn't expect us to be better than we can be, et cetera. You need to say, “God is holy, and he does hold the law over us, and we're in danger of hell because of it. That's why we need Christ.” If we don't do the law work, they won't think they need a savior. “We are created to be like God, to know God, to love God and to serve God.” Now we get to Christ, God's fifth title, savior. Savior, salvation, save from what? We don't use that language for anything except some extreme danger. The angel said to Joseph, concerning Mary's miraculous pregnancy, Matthew 1:21, “You'll give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” That's what Jesus came to do, save us from our sins. From everything that sin has done to us and to the world, comprehensive salvation, but primarily for our purposes, save from condemnation and wrath for our sins. So we get into the biography of Jesus. We talk about his supernatural conception, the virgin birth; Jesus' fully God, fully man. It's vital to understanding the gospel. No passage speaks about the theology of the incarnation with more power than John 1:1, and John 1:14. It says, “In the beginning was the word.” Then as you share the gospel, you say, “the word is Jesus Christ.” It’s very clear from first 18 verses of John's gospel, we're talking about Jesus. “In the beginning was the word, Jesus Christ, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” So Jesus is God. Then verse 14, “The word became flesh [that is, human,] and made his dwelling among us.” So the God-man, Jesus, is fully God and human. Secondly, we talk about his sinlessness. Jesus was sinless. “He committed no sin,” [I Peter 2:22]. He's sinless. That's vital, if he's not sinless, he can't be our substitutionary atonement. He did miracles. I think it's good to memorize a miracle story. My favorite is the four friends bringing the paralyzed guy. I love that story [Mark 2]. It's a great story. You don't have to get all the words right, but it wouldn't hurt you. You know the story about the four friends bringing him. Jesus is doing all these healings, healings, healings, and he can heal anything, and they hear about it. They bring their paralyzed friend. They can't get near him because there's a huge crowd. So they go up on the roof, they dig through the roof. They lower him down on ropes and put this paralyzed man right in front of Jesus. It says, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Take heart son, your sins are forgiven.’” That's powerful. That's the best miracle story to memorize, because it brings you from the miracle to why Jesus came, to talk about the forgiveness of sins. He says, to the paralyzed man, “That you may know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, I tell you, ‘Get up, pick up your mat and walk.” And he did. Or the stilling of the storm, the feeding of the 5,000, raising Lazarus from the dead. Any of these mighty miracles, memorize a story, make it real, make it powerful. People will be interested in it. It shows the power of Jesus as the God-man. Then we get to the core of the gospel, Jesus' substitutionary death on the cross, we preach Christ crucified. This sinless man, this servant, this healer, this teacher, died in our place under the wrath of God that we might have full forgiveness of sins[ I Peter 2:24]. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live for righteousness for by his wounds, you have been healed.” [I Peter 2:24]. Essential to this is the transfer of guilt, our sins transferred to Jesus and he dies under the wrath of God. His righteousness transferred to us, and we live forever in it. II Corinthians 5:21 is the best verse for this, “ God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.” They must understand this exchange, our guilt to Jesus and he dies, his righteousness to us, and in that, we live. That exchange happens by faith, we receive that gift by faith, and not by works. As a result of this, then we turn to Jesus' saving resurrection. There are many verses we could use for this. I Corinthians 15, “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, he was buried. And on the third day he was raised, according to the scriptures. And after that, he was seen by Peter and the twelve and other eyewitnesses.” Jesus physically rose from the dead, the tomb was empty. Now what does he come to give us? First, full forgiveness of sins. If you want to do that miracle story, you've already said it, “Take heart son, your sins are forgiven.” All your sins, past, present, and future, forgiven by God. He will not hold it against us, or as Ephesians 1:7 says, “In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” And not only that, but eternal life, Roman 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.” Now, the response. This may be the hardest part. You have to press them for a response. You have to make them realize they have to make a decision about this. This isn't just information. Probably the most convicting verse on this is Acts 2:40. After Peter gives his great Pentecost sermon, it says, “With many other words, he warned them and pleaded with them, save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Warning and pleading. That gets a little awkward in airplane evangelism, friends. They might call the flight attendant. It was fine until that, but now we're at warning and pleading. I don't think I've ever reached the level of warning and pleading, but I have had such a connection with people that I've sharing the gospel that I earnestly yearn for them to spend eternity with me in heaven, and I told them that. I've also said, “I pray that God will not let you sleep tonight until you repent and give your life to Christ.” This is if they defer, but you must bring them to a decision. You must bring them to know they have to decide what they're going to do with the gospel. They should be asking, once you do the law work, what the Philippian jailer asks, “What must I do to be saved?” If they're not asking that question, they're not ready to be saved, and they may not be ready. It doesn't mean you've wasted your time. You could be doing that hard work and others will reap them later. You're not wasting your time, but this is what they need to come to that point. So what must they do? We've already said they must repent and believe. Memorize Mark 1:15, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the gospel.” Repent is turning away from sin and turning toward God. They need to believe the gospel, believe that Jesus can and will save them. At this point, you want to urge them to call on the name of the Lord, Romans 10:9, “Everyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved.” What does that mean? Well, generally it's prayer. Some evangelists are very against the Sinner's Prayer. Well, they're sinners and I'd like them to pray. So I guess I'm not against sinner's prayers. There's nothing magic about it, I don't feed them the words. If I've done the work as an evangelist, they should know what to pray. I ask them, “Wwhat do you want from God?” “Well, I don't want to go to hell.” “Tell him. Anything else?” “I’d like to be forgiven.” “Tell him. Anything else? Tell him what you want, and he will hear you. Call in the name of the Lord, Jesus.” And I just listen to them pray. If this is a supernatural work of the spirit, you're going to get to hear the first prayer of a newly born again person. How exciting is that? Prayer isn't magic. What happens is there's already faith, and then they call on the name of the Lord. That's what they must do. What they must not do, don't work for it. Don't try to earn it. Ephesians 2:8-9 is great for this, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not by work so that no one can boast.” Secondly, don't wait for it either. “If today you hear his voice, don't harden your heart.” [Hebrews 3] or II Corinthians 6:2 says, “I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, today is the day of salvation.” You don't know you'll have tomorrow. You don't know. If they do that, they'll get eternal life now, “If anyone's in Christ as a new creation, the old is gone, everything is new.” They get a new life now, a life of obedience. Then they get to live forever beyond death. They don't need to fear death. How awesome is that? “I am the resurrection in the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Call for a response. Mack Stiles in his book on evangelism, Marks of the Messenger, said this is a thing you can say. “I think this is an urgent matter in your life. I think you understand the gospel now. And really what is left for you is to place your complete faith and trust in Christ. What is stopping you from doing that?” Then listen. “What would stop you from placing your life in Christ's hands? What would stop you from repenting and believing in Christ?” Listen, see what they say. Application Central application has been the same all the way through the sermon, repent and believe in Christ, if you haven't yet done that. Trust in Christ, don't leave here unconverted. You don't know that you'll ever hear the gospel this clearly again, but if you're a Christian just drink in this gospel message for your own health and vitality. Get healthy by feeding on these truths. How sweet are they? Ask yourself these three diagnostic questions. Do I know the gospel? Do I live the gospel? Do I speak the gospel? Pray for God to give you boldness like the apostle Paul prayed. He said, “ Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should.” Get people to pray that for you. Or Colossians 4:4, “Pray that I may proclaim it clearly.” Fearlessly and clearly. Get a couple of people to pray for your evangelistic life, and pray for God to give you opportunities to share a gospel outline like this, even this week. Take action. Mack Stiles says, “Do a body check. Check your head, is the gospel on your mind throughout the day? Check your gut. Are you willing to be bold in the face of your fears? Check your feet. Are you willing to move out into the hostile world to speak the truth? Are you willing to go where unbelievers are, to meet them and to know them and eventually share with them?” Pray for yourself. Pray for lost people you know by name. Plan, look ahead at your vacations, your work life, your business trips, your patterns of life. Ask the Lord to go ahead of you and prepare good works for you to do, good works of evangelism. Think through issues that unbelievers are likely to bring up, and start getting answers to some of the questions they bring up. Prepare, memorize and outline like this. You already have one part of it memorized. What is it? “God, Man, Christ, Response.” There, that's easy. Now, fill it in, prepare, and then get started. Start living life centered around your calling as an evangelist, the hobbies, your lifestyle, things you do with your kids, the coffee shops you frequent. Use your home as a base of evangelism through hospitality. Gather with Christians together to pray for lost people you know, gather with non-Christians to go through a simple four-week outline of the Gospel of Mark. Serve, find ways to get involved in the issues of our community so that you can meet lost people and share the gospel with them. Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the time we've had to walk through the gospel today. Thank you for this opportunity. Lord. You're good to us, you're kind and gracious that you not only save us, but you also recruit us and command us to be messengers of the gospel message. Help us to be faithful to that calling. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

This week we are talking about short term missions! Our guest this week is Mack Stiles. Mack has been a missionary for decades. He has pastored churches, written books and has much experience with our topic this week!

You are listening to a talk given at CROSS CON21. Learn more about our upcoming conferences at crosscon.com.

In this episode, Tyler talks with Mack Stiles about the topic of evangelism. Every few years, churches jump into the latest evangelistic fad. Leaders administrate the new program, and members go on a raid. But picture a church where evangelism is simply part of the culture. Listen in as Mack shares some wisdom and encouragement to help us share faith consistently and openly. Join us and stay connected on social: Facebook: facebook.com/practiceoftheology Instagram: instagram.com/practiceoftheology Twitter: twitter.com/practiceoftheo

Mack Stiles teaches the third message of our Act Like Men conference with a message from Acts 20. 

Mack Stiles teaches our second message of our Act Like Men conference with a message from Matthew 7.

What's the difference between “movement-based missions” and “church-based missions”? In this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman chats with Mack Stiles, Brooks Buser, Scott Logsdon, and Aubrey Sequeira about these diverging approaches to obeying the Great Commission.

Ron & Danny make the case that (1) preaching the gospel, (2) making disciples, and (3) multiplying local churches are the three essential priorities of the Church's mission. Recommended resource: Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus, by Mack Stiles

J. Mack Stiles is the former pastor of a church in Iraq. He used to work as CEO of Gulf Digital Solutions and general secretary for the Fellowship of Christian UAE Students (FOCUS) in the United Arab Emirates. He worked for many years with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the United States. He is the author of Marks of the Messenger and Speaking of Jesus. He currently lives in Louisville, KY with his wife. Find Mack's books here: https://amzn.to/3yVCc4E

In this special episode, Tyler talks with Mack Stiles about the current events in Afghanistan and how Christians can pray.

 Join Bryan Catherman, Josiah Walker, and Robbie Tschorn as they discuss the Building Healthy Churches book, Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus by Mack Stiles.  Copyright 2021.  For more information, please visit www.SaltyBeliever.com. Listen or download here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g6piy4mhx408xyg/healthy%20churches%206.mp3?raw=1

Excited about the 2021 Grace Baptist Church Missions Conference with guest speaker, Mack Stiles. Church family, take note of the new date: July 25-28 Here's a preview by Glen South.

Mack Stiles talks about the relationship between Evangelism and the local church. Full of wisdom, honesty and insight.

Episode 5

Evangelism by Mack Stiles

Evangelism by Mack Stiles

Evangelism by Mack Stiles

Panel #1 at CROSS20 with the topic "Your Purpose and God's Glory."  Speakers are David Platt, Zane Pratt, Mack Stiles, Cyndi Logsdon, and Jonathan Morgan.

Episode 1

Movements are surprising activities of God where great numbers of people come to Christ, and new churches are started, in a relatively short period of time. Should we intentionally pursue rapid multiplication of disciples and churches? Are movements methods biblical? In this episode, Jesse responds to some recent, common critiques of movements methods. Resources mentioned in the episode: “What Could Be Wrong With Church Planting?” by Mack Stiles: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-could-be-wrong-with-church-plantingMark Dever on CPMs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi9Xp8D7_OcNo Place Left Website: https://noplaceleft.netChurch Planting Movements by David Garrison: https://www.amazon.com/Church-Planting-Movements-Redeeming-World/dp/0974756202Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours? By Roland AllenThe Spontaneous Expansion of the Church by Roland AllenConnect with us:The Coworkers Podcast websiteInstagram: thecoworkerspodcastEmail: coworkersstudy@gmail.com

Listen as Dan talks to one of our supported workers Mack Stiles about missions. Mack will be one of the speakers at this year's Cross Conference (https://crossforthenations.org/). Mack was scheduled to come to speak to us at Hinson this summer but the pandemic prevented that. So listen to what Mack has to say to us about God's work in the Middle East!

We ended our first full day of New Years Conference talking about Christ’s lordship in our lives. Mack opened the session with a quote about our days. “There are two days we are really worried about, “today and “The Day”, meaning the day we stand before God.”, Mack Stiles. Mack explained the lordship of Christ through a passage many have heard before:I Never Knew You21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23. The fall of most people is not making Jesus the Lord of their lives, they do this because they desire to be their own god. If that is not the tendency of those people, it is they do not want God to mess up or change their lifestyles. They point to themselves and claim they are the reason they are able to get to Heaven. The tendency to make this claim is a tendency of a self-righteous person. God is the only one who makes a person righteous. Mack explains in detail that our desire should not be that we know Christ, but that Christ knows us and for Jesus to claim knowing us. Mack closes by asking eight important questions for the audience to ask themselves to investigate if they know God and He knows them.

In our second session, Mack Stiles continued to bring the heat of God’s Word to hundreds of college students. He began discussing the simplicity of living for God and serving him daily. Christ’s death on the cross was the ultimate gift, freely given, that we don’t deserve, is it that difficult for us to live for him? Mack focused on a passage in Mark to better explain this concept;And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Mark 8:27-38 (ESV)Mack used this passage to challenge the audience with the question of “Who do you think I am?” that being Christ. After this challenge, Mack transitioned back to what it truly means to follow Christ and how it ought to show in our lives. He used the above verses to display that. Finally, we must consider a few things. If Jesus died on the cross and paid the penalty for our sins, why not give up your life? What is there to lose on this earth if you will gain Heaven?

Mack Stiles started the first session off explaining the Gospel of Christ using four helpful questions to help the audience break it down. The questions Mack asked were not only for the students attending who have never heard the Gospel, but also the students who have heard it and need to teach it to themselves. Believers of Jesus Christ are encouraged to never stop preaching the Gospel to themselves. Who is God? What does the Bible say about Him?Who am I?Who is Christ? What did he do for me?How do I respond?To briefly summarize the answers to these questions; it is important to look at what perspective we are answering them from. Often times people will try to answer the questions above from our own personal experiences or views. This way of thinking is faulty.Final thoughts: Mack gave some really neat perspective for what living in this world is like. He compared it to living in a shipwreck; you will find much treasure (worldly pleasures) and much brokenness on the ship. This is not the way it is supposed to be. As we look at these treasures, we must remember the reality of Satan’s deception. He will minimize our sin, lie, and promise untrue things. Satan over promises and under delivers. The sin of disbelief, not believing who God says He is is what ultimately plagues us in our walk with God. To believe the truths God reveals to us, we must continue preaching the Gospel to ourselves. Ask yourselves these questions and search for the truths in God’s Word. Jesus was our ransom, which means we were kidnapped by Satan (Romans 5:12), but Jesus gave his life as a ransom or a payment for our bondage. This sets us free. The cross was not plan B, it was plan A (1 Corinthians 15:21).

We're so excited to kick off a brand new, on-again/off-again, series here at the podcast called "Bible Threads"! Each episode in this series will feature a particular theme. Joshua and Drew will then trace this theme's theological development through the Old & New Testaments. And to get things started, we trace out how the concept of land has a huge impact on our understanding of the redemptive purposes of God! Enjoy! *SPECIAL EVENT* Click here to purchase your tickets for our very first 4:14 Conference on February 7-8, 2020 at Central Baptist Church! Enter the promo code "414life" for a 10% DISCOUNT. You can learn more about the conference and featured speakers by visiting 414conference.com We will also be doing a live recording of Lifeology Podcast at the event! We hope to see you there!  **CONTEST GIVEAWAY** Go to our facebook page here to comment your idea for how we should decorate our new podcast studio. It is the post at the very top of the page. The person who posts the coolest/most creative idea will receive a copy of J. Mack Stiles' book Evangelism: How The Whole Church Speaks of Jesus. 

In this second (and final) installment on the Ordinances of the Church, Joshua and Drew take a look at the Lord's Supper. First, we'll go on a journey back in time as we see how the Lord's Supper has been understood over the last 2,000 years of church history. Then we will travel even further back to the relevant biblical texts themselves to see how best to understand this important practice. Finally, we wrap up with the blessings this Ordinance is meant to impart to us as a part of God's covenant people! *FREE GIVEAWAY*: We are now in our own podcast studio! Woohoo! But we need your help! Go to Lifeology's facebook page here and comment your most creative ideas for how we should design our studio on the post at the very top of the page. The most creative/fun idea will receive a free copy of J. Mack Stiles' book "Evangelism: How The Whole Church Speaks of Jesus" *UPCOMING EVENT*: Join us on February 7-8, 2020 at Central Baptist Church for our very first 4:14 conference! Visit www.414conference.com for more details. When you purchase your tickets, enter the promo code "414life" for a 10% discount! 

Mack Stiles on the need for gospel-centered churches at the heart of missions

Plenary Session 5 from CROSS19. Mack Stiles and his wife, Leeann, have traveled and lived many places before landing in Erbil, Iraq, in July 2017, including 15 years in Dubai, UAE. He’s the pastor of Erbil International Baptist Church.

The Great Commission isn't disconnected from the church — it's given to the church. God designed the local church and missions to be wed together.

We cannot afford to ignore hell. Christians must care about suffering, but especially eternal suffering. And it must mobilize us to go and to send.

Mensagem ministrada na Conferência Fiel de Jovens 2018. Saiba mais em: ministeriofiel.com.br/jovens

Mensagem ministrada na Conferência Fiel de Jovens 2018. Saiba mais em: ministeriofiel.com.br/jovens

sermon transcript Introduction I was raised in a Roman Catholic family in eastern Massachusetts. I attended church faithfully and enjoyed it. I was an altar boy, and I learned accurately about Jesus — that he was the son of God, son of Mary, and part of the Trinity. One thing I did not learn in the Catholic church is how a sinner like me could be made right with God, and so I was lost. I went to church every Sunday, but I lived a lost life throughout the week. When I went off to college, I stopped going to church. I was too busy on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings to go to church, and it was not in my heart. I joined the Sigma Chi fraternity at MIT. One of our summer responsibilities was fraternity evangelism. That has nothing to do with the Gospel. We had to recruit incoming freshmen to join the fraternity, just as I had been the year before, who would agree to live in the house on Beacon Street in Boston to replace those who had graduated. If we did not, our rent would increase. I had to make five recruitment phone calls that summer to incoming freshmen in eastern Massachusetts, to invite them to summer parties hosted by the fraternity. I hated making those phone calls because the freshman were so cynical — they received calls from many fraternities besides ours. I made my five calls and then crumpled up the list and threw it in the trash. I was done. Then I felt guilty, thinking, “What kind of attitude is that? I will make six phone calls. I will go above and beyond the call of duty.” The sixth guy, Steve Chamberlain, led me to Christ. Just as I took the list out of the trash can, to some degree God took me up out of Hell and into Heaven. (Steve lived in Topsfield, where I would later become a pastor; he was mentored by Mark Dever, the pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church and the founder of the 9Marks ministry, whom I first met when he came to see me the week I was converted.) It took a year of evangelistic effort on Steve’s part. I treated him very badly. I was rude to him. At first, when he started talking to me about the Gospel, I was interested, and then little by little, I became offended. I did not like how I felt when he was around, so I did not want to eat with him or spend time with him. Eventually, God broke through. I did not come to faith in Christ the first time I heard the Gospel; it took a year or so, but eventually the Lord by His sovereign grace brought me. I think often of Steve Chamberlain’s faithfulness. In the 36 or so years since that time, only a handful of people have evangelized me — not counting the Jehovah’s Witnesses that knock on our door — with the true Gospel. I was always thankful for those few, but I realize evangelism is hard for Christians. I have struggled with this my entire Christian life. I am not naturally outgoing; I do not naturally enjoy meeting strangers. It is a challenge. Satan has put up obstacles in our culture that hinder us from meeting strangers, talking comfortably to people that we do not know. This morning we will talk about evangelism and the responsibility that we have to share the Gospel with people around us here in the area. We will focus on Revelation 22:17: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who is thirsty come, and the one who desires the water of life drink freely.” We will immerse ourselves in the mysterious calling of the Gospel, the responsibility we have to be involved in the Gospel ministry. We will learn more about evangelism, of calling thirsty sinners to faith in Christ. Every day, we are surrounded in this Triangle region by unchurched, unsaved people. This area is exploding with people pouring in from all over the country, and from many places all over the world. People find the area a desirable place to live. There are jobs in the high tech industry, in pharmaceutical research, excellent hospitals, excellent universities. There is a pleasant, comfortable style and level of life that people find attractive. The climate is better here than in Boston, Massachusetts, I assure you — I do not miss the winters at all. This is one of the fastest growing metropolitan regions in the country. Most of those who come to the area are unchurched, unsaved. We have a responsibility to share the Gospel and we are strategically located in downtown Durham to do precisely that. The folks who are pouring in here that are lost, outside of Christ, are desperately seeking something. They are thirsty for meaning and purpose in life, and they are drinking from, in a sense, the cup of the great whore of Babylon from Revelation 17, enjoying material pleasures and advantages of life. From Revelation 18, we know that is what is going on, but they do not know. Drinking from that cup only makes them more thirsty. It is an addictive cycle, like quenching thirst with salt water. They are never satisfied, trying to find joy and pleasure and satisfaction and meaning in life, but we know they will never find it from this world system. If they are to find it, they will find it in Christ and his Gospel. It is our privilege, our responsibility, to call on them to come and drink from Christ. I tend to combine today’s text with Isaiah 55:1-2: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” We are strategically poised to invite thirsty people to come and drink, to find deep, rich, full satisfaction without money, without cost, to reach hundreds and even thousands with the Gospel, and to see dozens and dozens more baptized here in this church than we have ever seen before. That is my desire and the desire of all the elders. We want to see the Lord open doors all around us, and we need to walk through those doors. Jesus said in Revelation 3 to the church in Philadelphia, “See, I have placed before you an open door, which no one can shut.” When He opens a door, no one can shut it. When he shuts it, no one can open it. He has that kind of sovereign power. This sermon is specifically about our cooperation with the Holy Spirit of God in evangelism. We are called on to be partners in a mysterious way with the Holy Spirit in this work of Gospel outreach. God’s Final Invitation Final Invitation to Find Salvation This is God’s final invitation in Scripture to sinners to find salvation in Christ. We come to the end of the Bible — the final book, the final chapter, the final section, and whether we have God’s final invitation to sinners to come and find salvation in Christ. This invitation is like the parable that Jesus told of a king who wanted to put on a wedding banquet for his son. Matthew 22:2-5 says: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ But they paid no attention and went off — one to his field, another to his business.” God has been beckoning to lost people throughout the generations to come to the wedding banquet, but people do not come; they turn away in disinterest. A number of years ago at Christmas time, I encountered Hans Christian Andersen’s short story called The Little Match Girl, a story of a very poor girl whose harsh domineering father sends her out in the freezing cold weather on Christmas Eve to sell matches. No one is out because of the cold, so she cannot get anyone to buy her matches. Outside a rich home, she looks through the window and sees a banquet laid out. The window is steamed with aromas of the roast goose and lavish food on the banquet table, but she is on the outside looking in. No one sees her or invites her in. Instead, she lights one of her matches. As she looks at the glow, she imagines herself sitting at the banquet table until that match burns out. One by one, she lights all of her matches until they are all gone. She is found the next morning frozen to death. The parable of the wedding banquet has a different bent. Here, the happy King spreads a feast and yearns for people to come in and eat freely without money, without cost, to find their souls richly satisfied with the richest of fare. But he cannot get anyone to pay attention. Luke 14:18-20 is a parallel account: “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can't come.’” They are jut making excuses, unlike the little match girl, who is desperate that someone would invite her so that she can come in and get warm and be fed, but no one will invite her or open the door and welcome her. In this case, the tragic figure is the king. He wants people to come and celebrate with his son who is getting married but no one will come. In that parable, the king sends more and more messengers to compel people. Luke 14:23 says, “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.’” Day after day, God beckons to sinners, inviting them to a banquet. Romans 10:21 says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” That is the picture that I have of evangelism. While There Is Time The people who have moved to this area drive by churches daily. Perhaps they believe that life will continue on and on, that they have limitless time. Maybe they have some attraction to church, having had good experiences in the past or at least curiosity, but they do not stop. They drive by these churches as they go to work, or to shop, or on their way to the golf course. They see the steadiness of God’s gracious invitation day after day, week after week, year after year. The church seems solid, as though it will be there forever, giving the consistent message of salvation in Jesus. But I tell you that there will come a time when it will all come to an end. No book teaches that so plainly as the book of Revelation. It will come to an end. Every individual who is not in the final generation will die. It is appointed to us to die once and after that to face judgment. So as they goes through life surrounded like they are in America with many opportunities to hear the Gospel, there will come a last chance to hear the Gospel, to hear of the grace of God and Christ Jesus. Centuries ago, the Baptist preacher John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, preached a sermon based on two texts in the New Testament: the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and the parable of the rich fool. In Luke 12:16-21, Jesus tells of the rich fool whose land produced an abundant harvest such that he could not store it. “Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and will build bigger ones, and there I will store up all my grain and my goods. Then I will say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry!” ’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be required of you. Then who will own what you have accumulated?’” He also talked about how the rich man languished in Hell, asking for an act of mercy from Lazarus. The sermon was titled “A Few Sighs from Hell.” Bunyan said, “The man, instead of thinking of death, thought how he might make his barns bigger. But, in the midst of his business in the world, he lost his soul before he was aware, supposing that death had been many years off. But God said unto him, ‘You fool, you trouble yourself about things of this life, you put off the thoughts of departing this world, when this night your soul shall be taken from you.’ ... And hence it is again, that you have some in your towns and cities that are so suddenly taken away, some from visiting the ale-houses, others from frequenting the whore-houses, others from playing and gaming, others from the cares and covetous desires after this world, unlooked for as by themselves or their companions. Suddenly it is all over! It all comes to an end! And we can well imagine one of the groans, and sighs and laments that will come from many damned people: ‘I always thought I would have more time! I always thought I would have one more chance! I always figured I would be able to time it, that when I had my last chance to hear the invitation to free grace in Christ, that I would seize it.’” That is true of every individual. Life will come to an end. This is also true of the human race — the world is moving ahead to the end. There was an Alpha day and there will be an Omega day, a final day. This is God’s last invitation in Scripture: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who is thirsty come, and the one who desires the water of life drink freely.”This is a call to redeem the time. For anyone here today in an unconverted state, this is an opportunity for you to cross over from death to life. 2 Corinthians 6:2 says, “‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” Whoever Is Thirsty “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” It is an invitation to come drink the free gift of the water of life. Revelation 22:1-2 tells us what that is: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” It is an invitation to come and drink the water of eternal life, to come and drink and live forever. Are you thirsty? Has sin left you parched and empty? Come and drink the waters of the river of life flowing from Christ. This is specifically an invitation to come to Jesus Christ as your Savior. John 6:35 says, “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.’” That is a typical Jewish parallelism, Jewish poetry, to say the same thing twice in slightly different ways. Jesus did the same. To come to Jesus is to believe in him. If you do, you will never be hungry. You will never be thirsty. To come to the waters is to believe in Jesus, to trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins. The Spirit and the Bride Cooperation and Collaboration The Spirit and the bride are both saying, “Come, come to Jesus!” This is a marvelous verse on the cooperation between the Spirit and the Bride, who, we learned in Revelation 21, is the church of Jesus Christ, the people of God in this world. The Spirit and the Bride — the church — are together inviting lost sinners to come and drink from Christ and find life. Both the Spirit and the church, therefore, are instrumental in bringing lost sinners to faith in Christ. They both have a role to play. The Spirit calls sinners to come, and the bride calls sinners to come, and even those who are thirsty and who are coming and drinking are inviting other thirsty people to come and drink. The Spirit’s General Invitation The Spirit invites, generally, universally, the human race to come. He does this by means of Scripture, the Bible that he has inspired. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Son and the Spirit inspired the Scriptures, the written Word of God, which has the power to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15). In the Scripture, we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Romans 1:16-17 says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed — a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” That is a summary of the whole book of Romans. The Holy Spirit was in the Apostle Paul when he wrote those words. Through the Book of Romans, the Holy Spirit is saying to the human race, “Come, come to Christ and find forgiveness.” Later in that same book, we have the glowing heart of the gospel, in Romans 3:21-24: “…a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify [the law and the prophets together talk about this salvation in the Old Testament]. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified [forgiven of their sins, made right in the sight of God] freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Jesus shed His blood on the cross in our place that we might have forgiveness of sins. As Paul wrote, the law and the prophets testify to this gospel, even though they lived centuries before Jesus. The Holy Spirit was in the prophets, and he was showing them things about the future, things they would have no other way of knowing. 1 Peter 1:10-12 says, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. [The Spirit told Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel that centuries later, a savior would come to suffer and die, and be raised on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached in His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. They did not understand, but Peter says:] It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.” The Holy Spirit was in the prophets and the apostles in the writing of the Word. Through the Scriptures, the Spirit says “Come” generally to the human race. The Holy Spirit wrote the Old Testament through the prophets. He also wrote the New Testament through the apostles. After the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came into them, and then they wrote the New Testament. They were the eyewitnesses, which is the basis of the New Testament. Jesus told them it would happen in John 14:26: “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you [apostles] all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” The Holy Spirit reminded Peter, John, James, Andrew, and all of the apostles who were eyewitnesses, of all that he said and did. On the basis of that, we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the entire New Testament. The Father and the Son together sent the Spirit in the world to complete the redemptive work of God. This is amazing teaching. Without the powerful working of the Spirit, not a single sinner would ever have been saved. Jesus’ atoning work on the cross would have saved no one were it not for the work of the Holy Spirit. I am not speaking blasphemy or heresy; it is true. The blood of Christ was shed, but it had to be applied, just as the Jews of old had to paint the blood on the doorpost so that when the angel of death saw the blood, he passed over that house. It is the Holy Spirit’s glory to apply the blood of Christ to sinners like you and me. He moves and works, and so I owe my salvation as much to the work of the Holy Spirit as I do to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and to the Father for the plan. It is a cooperative effort. By the Spirit, the Gospel goes out into all the world; by the Spirit, Jesus becomes famous in every generation. When I was growing up, almost everybody had heard of the Beatles, an English rock group. Some of you younger ones have never heard of them, making my point. As every generation passes, they become less and less famous. One member of the group, John Lennon, once said, “We are more famous than Jesus.” Perhaps at that moment they were as close as anyone has ever been. But it is not true now — a new generation of babies has been born that never heard of John Lennon. There is no zealous, powerful, omnipotent God ensuring in every generation that John Lennon and the Beatles will be famous. All flesh is grass, and all their glories fade like the flower of the field. They become less and less famous with every passing year. But Jesus somehow is famous in every generation. How is that? It is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is making Jesus famous all over the world by moving the bride to say, “Come.” By the Spirit, the church is moved to preach the Gospel. Jesus said to the apostles and through them to the whole church, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth.” The Spirit compels witness, and that is the very thing I am counting on now for you. All of us feel inadequate as evangelists. We need to remind ourselves that it is only when the power of the Spirit comes on us that we can overcome our weaknesses and our selfishness and actually share the Gospel with people. This is a point of application: Rely on the Holy Spirit. I know you know what I am calling you to do, and I understand — it is hard for me too. Ask God to give you power through the Holy Spirit to be His witness today. Ask for the opportunity, and when that moment comes, ask Him to make you alert to it. Then ask Him to help you get over your sinful weakness, to enable you to speak for Jesus. He will, by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit compels witness. He has been doing this in every generation. One of my great missionary heroes is Hudson Taylor, a missionary to China. When he had finished his first tour of duty on the coast, as all the missionaries were, he returned to England and Scotland for some furlough, for recuperation and recruitment of new missionaries. While there, he had a vision. He saw a map of the inner provinces, the inland regions of China, and he knew that there were teeming hundreds of millions of people who had never heard of Jesus in those inner regions, while all of the western missionaries were on the coastline. He called it the accusing map. He wrote this about his experience attending a service in England: “On Sunday, June 25, 1865, unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge, I wandered out on the sands alone, in great spiritual agony, and there the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told Him that all the responsibility as to issues and consequences must rest with Him; that as His servant, it was mine to obey and follow Him— His to direct, to care for, and to guide those who might labor with me. Need I say that peace at once flowed into my burdened heart.” Where did the burden come from? Where did the unutterable agony come from as he was wandering on the sand? Does that not come from the Holy Spirit of God? The Spirit puts a burden, a compulsion, on our hearts. Ask God to give you a burden, a burning compulsion to reach individuals or a group of people that you are equipped to reach. The Apostle Paul said in Acts 20:22-24, “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.” Consider the beginning of that passage: “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem…” The compulsion, the burden, from the Spirit of God, where little by little you consider your life worth nothing to you if only you can do the work He has given you to do — do you yearn for that to happen in our church? Do you yearn that more and more church members would have a compulsion by the Spirit toward some aspect of outreach? It does not have to be the same for everybody. We get different callings. The Spirit says, “Come.” The Bride’s General Invitation The Bride says, “Come,” as well. The bride is the church. There is a collaborative, joint effort between the Spirit and the church. John 15:26-27 teaches this: “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth [the Holy Spirit] who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also [this is a partnership] must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” The Spirit and the bride together say, “Come.” We are to preach the Gospel to anyone and everyone, indiscriminately, because we cannot tell who are the elect, chosen before the foundation of the world. It is true and biblical, but we do not know who they are. Our task is to be willing to suffer for unconverted elect people, to see them cross over from darkness to light, from death to life. Adoniram Judson was called to be a missionary to Burma. He went to one locality where he and his partner gave out 500 missionary tracts, and as a result, they saw one Burmese person baptized. That is so convicting. I yearn for the 500 tracts. I want the one, but I want us to be the kind of church that will give out 499 and see the 500th person converted. I would love to be that persistent in evangelism where I am faithful, leaving the results to God, willing to have 499 failures to see somebody come to Christ. Our job is to continue to share Christ with as many people as we can, no matter how many or few respond. George Whitefield was one of the most powerful open-air preachers in all of church history, probably the most effective ever. He preached to tens and tens of thousands of people and saw hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands and thousands, converted. He traveled by horse-drawn carriage from place to place to place in England and Scotland and in the colonies before the American Revolution. He said something that stuck with me. He said, “God forbid that I should travel with anyone one-quarter of an hour and not share the Gospel with them.” On our way back from a conference in Louisville, Joel Harford and I flew from Louisville to Atlanta, and from Atlanta to RDU. In both cases, I had seat A and Joel had seat C. On the first leg, the guy in seat B, named Isaiah, was a 19-year-old baseball player from a college in the Louisville area, from a mild Baptist background, who had not been to church in years. On the second leg, our seatmate, named Joe, lived in Wake Forest. He was a nominal Roman Catholic and also had not been to church in years. Joel and I did not pound on them. We gave them a break. One asked if he could get by to use the restroom, and I wondered if that was to get away. But Joel and I agreed that we had done what we needed to do. We had a great time. Isaiah asked good questions. He was taking a World Religions class, and was reading whether the Gospel of Thomas should be included in the Bible. God put us there to have that conversation. At the end, Joe thanked us for the things we talked about. He asked questions and kept the conversation going until we landed. God gives opportunities along the way. The Spirit’s Effective Calling The Spirit alone has the power to cause a person to come. No sinner has or will ever resist the Holy Spirit’s mysterious, effective call, his effectual calling, or irresistible grace. When the Spirit moves, Ezekiel 36:26-27 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” This includes the command to repent and believe in Jesus. The Holy Spirit alone can do that. We cannot. In John 3:3-8, “Jesus declared, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’ ‘How can a man be born when he is old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’” When the Spirit says, “Come,” he gives you supernatural power, like Jesus when He raised Lazarus from the dead. You come alive and see the glory of God in the face of Christ, and you are born again. The Spirit can do that. Whoever Wishes May Come When that happens, the text says, “Whoever is thirsty, let him come, and whoever wishes, whoever wills, let him come.” That looks like free will, right in the Bible. However, without the Holy Spirit calling on your dead heart, you will never be willing to come. When he gives you life and moves in you, you will see at last just how delicious that water of life flowing from Jesus is. You want it, so he comes. John 6:37 says, “All that the Father gives me will come to me.” The Holy Spirit draws. Our job is to share the Gospel. Romans 10:13-15 says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” Be Fishers of People Understanding Our Responsibility and the Gospel Message We have a partnership responsibility. Let Christ make you a fisher of people. He said to his disciples, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Our job is to learn the skill of fishing. Some of you love fishing, but I will never want to learn real fishing like trout fishing, bass fishing, deep sea fishing. I do not like either the process or the product, so I will not do that. I understand it is very relaxing and peaceful. I have heard you say if the fish do not disturb us, we will have a great time. This fishing is different. We have a responsibility to learn the skill of fishing for people, to learn how to draw them skillfully, to answer their questions, to deal with arguments that Satan puts in their minds. God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. We are positioned like Esther, “for such a time as this,” to share the gospel. Our first task is to understand the Gospel message and to proclaim it boldly. Will Metzger, in his book To Tell the Truth, begins with this illustration: “Picture this: a runner in ancient Greece arrives exhausted before the emperor. Gasping, he blurts out, ‘My lord, I was given an urgent message, but... I am afraid I have forgotten what it was!’” That is bad. We must remember and understand the message we are sharing. First and foremost, we need to understand what the Gospel is. You have a bulletin insert, a basic four-part outline of the Gospel: God, man, (humanity), Christ and response. It may sound familiar — Campus Crusade for Christ and others have used similar outlines, such as the Four Spiritual Laws, over the years. First, God: He is the creator of everything. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He created all things, and because he created all things, He is King and ruler over everything. This is his universe. We are in it. As King, He is the law giver. He has given laws to the human race by which we are to live — the Ten Commandments and the two Great Commandments. As King, He is also judge. He will evaluate us on Judgment Day for how we have lived our lives. Second, man: we are created in the image of God by God the Creator. We were created to have a relationship with and to serve God the King, but we have broken that relationship through our sins. We have violated God’s laws; we are rebellious against God the King, and therefore, we are under condemnation by God the Judge. Physical death is promised. Eternal death in hell is threatened. Third, Christ: Christ is the fourth office — God the Savior. “Jesus” means “Salvation is from the Lord.” God sent his Son into the world. He was fully human, born of a virgin, and also fully God. He had no human father. His was a supernatural birth, He lived a sinless life, and He did miracles — he walked on water, he fed the 5000, he stilled the storm with his words, he raised dead people, he healed sick people. There was nothing he could not do, but he especially came to die a substitutionary death on the cross. His blood shed on the cross pays the death penalty for our sin — for the wages of sin is death — and Jesus paid that penalty in our place. But God did not leave Him in the grave. On the third day, God raised him from the grave, and He is alive and will live forever more. He ascended to Heaven, and sat at God’s right hand. He rules over Heaven and earth, and some day he will return to judge both living and dead people. Fourth, response: Therefore, we ourselves, having heard that, we must repent of our sins and believe the good news, that forgiveness of sins is available in Jesus Christ. You must not try to work for it or earn your salvation, but instead trust in the grace of God, for by grace are you saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one could boast [Ephesians 2]. Do not wait because you do not know if you will be alive tomorrow. Repent and believe the good news today. You do not need to do exactly that every time you evangelize, but it should be your goal to say those things in some form to the lost people around you, a pattern or a form of the Gospel message. A Varied Menu of Evangelistic Opportunities How will we evangelize? On the back of the blue sheet, you will see a menu of ideas in two categories, different ways of looking at your life. First, who can you share the Gospel with? Second, what can you do to engage with them? Who? Who will we evangelize? Here are six levels of concentric circles of people around you: Family: The most effective evangelism in the world is parent-child evangelism. Be faithful to pour the Gospel into your children’s lives. Lead them to an early faith in Christ. Also, extended family — God often uses saved children to lead their parents to Christ. Maybe you have unsaved brothers or sisters or other relatives — cousins, nieces, nephews, other family members. Unsaved friends: Build friendships with non-Christians. Neighbors: When I was growing up, neighbors were out and about most days. The other day, I went on a two-hour bike ride. It was a little hot, but I did not see a single pedestrian the whole time — nobody working in the yard or taking a walk. It was strange. Everybody was inside on electronic entertainment or simply staying cool. Somehow we must meet the people who live near us. Acquaintances: Meet people in your daily routine, at a convenience store, supermarket, on an airplane. Co-workers: Workplace evangelism is one of the most effective strategies. You interact every day with non-Christians — co-workers, your boss, a subordinate — hunt opportunities to share Christian things. Invite people to church, to your home; use hospitality. Total strangers: Go to a park nearby and sit down on a bench, or meet someone walking a dog or watching their kids play or strolling a baby. Have a conversation. How? First, look to develop a long-term loving relationship. Be a human being, get to know people, ask questions. On flights, I always ask questions. Where are you headed? (Ultimately, where are you headed?) Have conversations in the workplace. Be interested in others’ lives, Let it flow naturally from love. Be hospitable. Open your home. Make it a home base. Invite people over. Participate in ministering to felt needs — mercy ministry. The international connections ministry is one such opportunity. ESL is a big felt need. People come from China and other places, as refugees or visiting scholars. Most want to learn English better but it is an opportunity to share the Gospel. Serve at the health fair, the Caring Center, Habitat for Humanity, other places that meet non-Christians’ felt needs. Volunteer for events like VBS, coming soon. We get to interact with dozens of non-Christian parents who send their kids to VBS. That is a big ministry. I urge you to consider serving if you are able. The health fair is an event as well as a felt-need ministry. Plan an event at your home, such as a Christmas party or a 4th of July cookout. Invite people to attend. Engage in shared interests, like running, biking, pottery, kids’ sports or music. That is a basic beginning menu of strategies to help you find ways to interact with people. I urge this church to be involved in a culture of evangelism. Let us develop as a church, caring for each other and getting involved. If you have an event at your home, involve other church members. Do not do it alone. I have two books here, I’ve Got Tell the Truth by Will Metzger, and Evangelism by Mack Stiles — 10 of each. I am offering them free of charge to 20 people. If you take the book, you do not have to pay for it, but promise you will read it and when you are done, pass it off to another church member to read. A Call for Extraordinary Prayer for Durham Praying Together for Our Community We need to give ourselves to prayer for this, to ask God to help us with our evangelistic endeavors. To that end, I offer three options on prayer. First, this is our last home fellowship of the year; we will talk about evangelism in our groups and have chances to pray, but I would urge home fellowships through the summer to get together and pray for evangelistic fruit in each other’s lives and in our church. Second, every week, a small group of us meets at 8:30 a.m. on Sundays to pray. Since you are coming to church anyway, all you need to do is adjust your schedule to arrive a little earlier to join us. We will pray for evangelistic fruitfulness. That might be the most convenient way to pray about this with others. Third, starting this week, for four weeks, I will pray on Wednesday mornings at 6:00 a.m. I have done this in the past. Again, we will pray for our church to be fruitful in evangelism. If you would like to sacrifice a little sleep, we will meet here in the sanctuary to pray for God to bless our evangelistic outreach. Closing Prayer Father, thank you for the time we have had to study. Thank you for the things that we have learned. Father, I pray that you would give us zeal for the glory of God and for the Gospel ministry. Help us to be energetically active as witnesses. Help us not to be afraid or fearful of it, but to be active in the things that you have called on us to do. Thank you for committing to us the ministry of reconciliation, as though God Himself were making His appeal through us. Help us, O Lord, to be faithful. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Show Notes James sits down with Garrett Kell to talk about ministry as well as a few ofGarrett’s blog articles. Garret is married to Carrie, and together they have five children. He serves as a pastor of Dell Ray Baptist church in Alexandria, Virginia. We specifically discuss two articles by Garrett: Stop Photo Bombing Jesus and I Was a Pastor Hooked on Porn. Both articles can be found at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/author/Garrett-Kell. Some of his other articles can be found in the following links: http://www.desiringgod.org/authors/garrett-kell, https://www.9marks.org/by-author/garrett-kell/, https://ftc.co/resource-library/author/garrett-kell, and http://garrettkell.com/. Plugs of the Week Pilgrims Progress - John B. - Desiring God’s eddition http://www.desiringgod.org/books/the-pilgrim-s-progress A call to prayer - J.c. Ryle https://www.amazon.com/Call-Prayer-J-C-Ryle/dp/0851518192 Thoughts for a Young Man - J.C. Ryle https://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Young-Men-J-Ryle/dp/1484881702/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505697177&sr=1-1&keywords=Thoughts+for+a+Young+Man Select Letters of John Newton - John Newton https://www.amazon.com/Select-Letters-John-Newton/dp/1848711409/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505697206&sr=1-1&keywords=Select+Letters+of+John+newton Evangelism - J. Mack Stiles https://www.amazon.com/Evangelism-Church-Building-Healthy-Churches/dp/1433544652/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505697246&sr=1-1&keywords=Evangelism Joe Thorn’s three book http://www.joethorn.net/books/ What is the Gospel https://www.amazon.com/What-Gospel-9Marks-Greg-Gilbert/dp/1433515008/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505697289&sr=1-1&keywords=what+is+the+gospel Garret’s Social Media Links Twitter - @pastorjgkell Facebook - Garrett Kell www.allthingsforgood.com

Mack Stiles on Luke 18:9–17

In this talk, Mack Stiles shares how our culture can be so embedded into our lives that we can take it with us no matter if we realize it or not. He goes on to share three major concerns about modern missions and how we can avoid some cultural pitfalls overseas.

In his talk, Mack Stiles shares what it looks like to live under the lordship of Christ and the necessity of submitting to him now. He urges students to see Jesus as the treasure and great reward that is worth following no matter what the circumstances.

Title: Fishers of Men Preacher: Mack Stiles Series: Messages by Friends Passage: Luke 5:1-11

Mack Stiles, a veteran missionary, walks through seven different aspects of modern missionary service that showcase how too many missionaries’ today are more devoted to cleverness, not faithfulness. He lays out the basic gospel message and reminds us why that is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel, not our wit, is what unreached peoples of the world need.

What qualifies someone as a missionary? Are all Christians missionaries? Why or why not? Mack Stiles tackles fundamental questions like these in this breakout. Mack Stiles is CEO of Gulf Digital Solutions and general secretary for the Fellowship of Christian UAE Students (FOCUS) in the United Arab Emirates. He has worked for many years with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the United States. He is the author of Marks of the Messenger and Speaking of Jesus. Mack enjoys photography and snow skiing, but most of all loves thinking through how to apply the gospel of grace to issues confronting students in the university world. He is married to Leeann, and they are parents of three sons.

In this episode, we address the important and often intimidating task of evangelism. Various aspects of sharing the gospel are discussed. Pastor John recommends some helpful books related to evangelism (Dever, Packer, Stiles, and others) and we have personal stories from a few Crossway members about how they heard the gospel and came to faith in Christ.

In this session, Mack Stiles upholds biblical criteria one should use when discerning a “call” to missions. Mere inward and emotional certainty is not enough. The missionary’s call should be inspired by the Word of God, informed by the content of the gospel, and externally confirmed by the church.

sermon transcript Series Introduction: The Exciting Road Ahead A Vision of the Resurrected Christ in Revelation 1: What Would He Say About FBC? At the end of his life, the Apostle John was exiled for the ministry of the Word of God, for the testimony of Jesus to the island of Patmos, a small island off the coast of modern day Turkey. All the other 12 had been martyred for their faith as they shared the Gospel, but God had a special purpose for John at the end of his life. And one of those, one of the aspect of that purpose was that he would have a revelation of the resurrected and glorified Jesus Christ. He was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and he had this vision of Christ. Revelation 1 says there, “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me, and when I turned, I saw seven golden lamp stands. And among the lamp stands was someone like a son of man dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white, like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. And in his right hand, he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. And then he placed his right hand on me and said, 'Do not be afraid. I am the first, and I am the last. I am the living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. And I hold the key of death and Hades. Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lamp stands is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And the seven lamp stands are the seven churches.'" So we have a picture of the resurrected Christ in glory, and in it seems priestly garments, moving through these seven golden lamp stands. And we're told there that these seven lamp stands represent the seven churches. And they are lamp stands, I think, because Jesus said to us, “You are the light of the world.” And they are golden, because they are precious and valuable. And he's moving through them, because he has an ongoing ministry to local churches. And in the next two chapters, which we're not going to go through. By the way, we are looking at John 12 today. This is all intro. I haven't forgotten that. But here's the resurrected Christ moving through these seven golden lamp stands. And he has something to say to each of the seven churches. The seven churches were real churches, but they were also symbolic as well. That often happens in scripture. Things that really happened in space and time have an eternal spiritual lesson for us as well. And they were just across a small stretch of water, there in kind of a circular postal route, there in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, these seven churches. And he has these seven statements to make to the seven churches, and they are of a timeless nature. And it's very clear that the Lord wants us to read the other churches' mail. We're supposed to read all of the letters, because at the end of each of these letters, he says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” plural. So we're supposed to read all these seven letters, and at the end of each one, also, it gives a promise to him who overcomes. So we're supposed to read these letters and we're supposed to understand what's happening in each of these seven churches. And we're supposed to be given by the power of the Spirit the ability to overcome for his glory. And so we're supposed to learn from these. And so from... I think from the church at Ephesus, we're supposed to learn the value of doctrinal and life purity, but also the danger of forsaking our first love. From the church at Smyrna, we're supposed to learn the very real possibility of persecution, of being imprisoned and even killed for our testimony to Jesus. And though that may not be happening to us, we're supposed to be aware that it's happening to other brothers and sisters, and pray for them and care about it and be aware that it may happen to us in the future. From the church at the Thyatira, we're supposed to understand the danger of tolerating sin, especially sexual sin. From the church at Sardis, we're supposed to understand the danger that a church that was once alive and vibrant and vital can at some point become dead, living on its past reputation, no longer vibrant and vital for the glory of God. From the church at Philadelphia, supposed to learn the value of seeing open doors of ministry and walking through them while we have the opportunity. And from the church at Laodicea, the dire warning to not become spiritually lukewarm, that the Lord would spit us out of his mouth because we're neither hot nor cold. So seven churches, but it made me wonder, and it's made the elders wonder recently, as we've thought about these things, how would the Lord Jesus evaluate FBC? Evaluating Where We Are and Where We Are Going What would he say about us? What kind of letter would he write to this church? How are we to see ourselves? And as we've seen what we consider to be led by the Spirit, strengths and weaknesses, opportunities for ministry, some dangers that we face, some good things that are happening in our midst, we feel that we would like to urge the church more and more toward faithfulness in evangelism and evangelistic fruitfulness. We would love to see this church have a river of people who are brought to faith in Christ by our witness and then discipled and trained. And we want to see this happen, because we believe that it is the logical and spiritual next step of health in this church's progression or reformation, that we would see more and more individuals brought to faith in Christ. And so we are excited and thrilled not just about the next five weeks, but about what God may have for this church over the coming years, even decades, if he should not return in our lifetime. We want to be positive. We want to be thankful. We want to be helpful. We want to be biblical and prayerful, and we want to be fruitful. Ten Years from Now: A Culture of Evangelism… With Its Evident Fruit And so that's our desire as we begin this little five-week focus, but 10 years from now, brothers and sisters, I would love to see a culture of evangelism thriving here, just a kind of a warm culture of people regularly sharing their faith, regularly taking faith steps, venturing forth in the workplace, in the neighborhood with family members, with parents of fellow team members, with total strangers even. We want to see people here consistently, regularly trained very well in evangelism, so that people know what the Gospel is, and they know what to say in various circumstances. And they're ready, and they are being encouraged by positive examples from other brothers and sisters, regular testimonies of people who are sharing their faith. We long to see people brought to the ordinance of water baptism and be able to hear their stories of how this or that was brought to faith by members of FBC. Honestly, I think I can speak for all the others that we don't care who brings them to faith. Amen? Just like members of a team don't care who sank the winning shot. We just want to see it done, and we are so thrilled when we hear stories of faithfulness as you guys are reaching out with the Gospel. We would long to see this culture of evangelism just flourishing here, and I believe we're going to see it. I believe this is something the Lord is going to work here as we're faithful and as we step out in faith, and as we hear God's word. Recently, a number of us were at a missions conference at Christmas time, the Cross Conference, and a friend of mine, Mack Stiles, who has a flourishing evangelistic ministry in the Persian Gulf with students, Muslim college students, and seeing many come to Christ very rapidly, seeing them built up in their faith in Christ rapidly and seeing them be fruitful to the glory of God. Anyway, he was able to sit four generations spiritually of people right alongside each other. This one led this one to faith, who led this one to faith, who led this one to faith. That's awesome. Wouldn't you love to see that here at FBC? Two Infinite Journeys… We Must Make Balanced Progress Now, that's just a rare providence that that could happen all in one, the context of one local church and that person stays there and they come to faith and are trained so quickly. But wouldn't that be incredible? We yearn to see a culture of evangelism, and so as Ashok was sharing these two infinite journeys, we want to keep them in front of you. The internal journey of sanctification, we must never turn our backs on that. We believe that's a real strength of this church that we love the Word of God. We love doctrine. We want to drink it in. We are happy to get good teaching and good preaching, and we want to grow in grace. And we must embrace that. We want to be holy and like Christ. We also want to be faithful in the external journey, and I think this is a church that's seen numbers of people go out from our midsts to go be set up on the mission field. We want to see that more than ever before. We would like to see lots of folks coming through and being trained here, running with us for a while, but then going out to some unreached people group. The external journey breaks into two kind of sub-sections in my mind. There's missions in which you have people that are being reached that not only have they never heard of Jesus, but people around them have never heard of Jesus, and there's no church there. We just need to see those people brought to faith in Christ, and that's going to take years of language-learning and culture. That's what we call missions. But here at home, there's evangelism, and these are people who are not yet Christians, but they are surrounded by the sounds of the Gospel all the time. They have probably Christian friends and family and relatives, other people that they're aware of the Gospel, but they're not yet brought to faith in Christ. I would contend that because of that, they're hard to reach. But this is the mission field God's given us right here, and I yearn to see us be faithful in evangelism and to grow. And I think that these two journeys are interconnected. They're intertwined. As we are embracing our sanctification and growing in maturity and our love for Jesus, we're going to want to be more and more faithful in evangelism. And as we're actively sharing our faith, we're going to have more and more opportunities to grow in grace and trust God for things. So we look on these two journeys as intertwined. We want to see it happen. My Desire: Hope-Filled Training, Encouragement So for five weeks, I'm going to be preaching sermons, evangelistic sermons. It's the closest you'll ever get me to preaching topically. This is it, guys. So if those of you thought, "Ah, a topical sermon," that's what it is, five weeks of it. But even so, I can't help but be exegetical, so I'm choosing the five best passages. Is that okay? Good compromise. So topics, but still exposition. And this morning, it's John 12. My desire is to be biblical. I want to be practical in the pulpit. I want to talk about practical ways you can grow. I want to be encouraging. My deep desire is to motivate people, whoever you are, wherever you're at in your walk, to take the next steps in evangelism without resorting to guilt manipulation. It's a terrible motivator. It is not helpful. And we'll talk more about that, but I don't desire to make anyone feel guilty. I want to be motivational based on Scripture's motivations, ultimately, the glory of God, as we'll see this morning. Five Weeks in March Also along with this for three weeks, we're going to see discussion on these sermons in the evenings at home fellowship, so all the home fellowships will be focusing on these topics for three weeks. And then the final week, Sunday, we have no home fellowships tonight. On the final evening, Sunday evening, we will have a time of corporate prayer here in this room, in this sanctuary, in the evening, to just plead with God to give us fruit and that we would see people brought to faith in Christ and just a time of prayer for them. So we're looking forward to that. Along with that, I'm teaching a Bible for Life class. And if you're not presently attending a Bible for Life class, I would urge you to think about coming to the one that I'm teaching on evangelism. So we're going to go over some of these same things. We're going to try to be practical. That's Sunday mornings 9:15 AM and beyond. Along with that, Wednesday evenings, I and some others will be teaching on evangelism as well. Now you may be wondering, "How can we do all of this teaching on evangelism and say different things each time?" I'm not promising that. There's going to be some repetition, some overlap. I have only so many ideas on evangelism, but I want to hear from you folks as well. And so those other settings will be more give and take as well, a chance for us to sharpen ourselves in that. So that's what's ahead. All of that kind of a brief sermon series intro. Powerful Lessons on Evangelism from John 12 The Subjects of Evangelism: A Foretaste of a Vast Harvest (vs. 20- 22) Let's dig in now to John chapter 12, and let's see what kind of lessons we can learn from this on the issue of evangelism. And I want to begin just with this amazing encounter that Jesus has in verse 20 and following, 20 through 22, of some Greeks who come up to fill up in Andrew, and they want to see Jesus. And so I'm beginning. The first point I notice here are the subjects of evangelism, this foretaste of a vast harvest. Look again at verse 20 through 22: “Now, there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the feast, and they came unto Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee with a request. Sir, they said, ‘We would like to see Jesus.’ Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.” So these are Greeks. They're pagans. They're non-Jews. We don't even know that they would be at the level of God-fearers, 'cause John doesn't tell us that. They're just Greeks. And maybe they'd heard about Jesus' reputation, his miracles, something like that. And they had a strong interest to meet Jesus. And Jesus would have been very difficult to get to at that point, surrounded constantly by a huge crowd of people, so they went to people who maybe could introduce them to Jesus. They wanted to meet Jesus. And so Philip and Andrew together, they work together to bring these men to Jesus. Now at that time, bringing people to Jesus was physical. You could literally bring them to where Jesus was and they could have a conversation. For us, it's a metaphor for evangelism, for the spiritual work of introducing people to Christ spiritually through the Gospel. And so Philip and Andrew are doing that with these Greeks, and it's amazing how Jesus reacts. We don't get a conversation between Jesus and these Greeks here in the text. I'm sure that he talked to them, but we don't have a record of it here. Instead, Jesus' mind goes immediately to the cross, goes immediately to his imminent death on the cross. Why so? Well, I don't know exactly what was going on in Jesus' mind, but it's not a stretch to think that he realized that these Greeks were just a foretaste of a vast and varied harvest that was going to go among all the tribes and languages and peoples and nations of people interested in coming to Jesus and believing in Jesus and following him. He knew the scriptures better than anyone else alive, anyone who has ever lived, and he knew it said in Isaiah 49:6, that Jesus would be a “…light for the Gentiles, that he may bring God's salvation to the ends of the earth.” Jesus was, Jesus is the light for the Gentiles. He also knew that he would shed his blood. Revelation 5:9 says there, “You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” And so he had this, I think, in his mind, because he immediately talks about a kernel of wheat falling into the ground and dying and bringing forth much fruit. So for us, the application - I'm going to just be weaving applications all the way through here - the application is that we should yearn to bring people to Jesus. We should try to live in such a way that people are hungry to meet the savior. They want to know more about the hope that's in us. They're hungry for that, and that these Greeks were just the first fruits of centuries of Gentiles, who would be fascinated in Jesus. Do you yearn for this? Do you yearn to be instrumental in bringing people to Jesus? How much would you love someone to come up and say to you what these Greeks said. "We would love to meet Jesus. Can you tell us how?" Hey, what's wrong with praying to God for that? I don't know that God will grant you that prayer, but why not? You say that, "Pastor, that's where I'm at in evangelism. If someone comes to me and says, 'I would like to meet Jesus,' I'll tell them. But other than that, I don't know." Well, I understand that. I feel like that many days, but why couldn't we ask God for that and see what he does? And it could be that God will give you something that easy, or it could be that God will just make you a little stronger and bolder. But either way, just yearn to be an instrument in bringing people to Jesus as Philip and Andrew were. The Unique and Repeated Pattern of Evangelism: The Death of a Seed (vs. 23-25) Secondly, Jesus then brings us to, what I call, the unique but also repeated pattern of evangelism, the death of a seed. First of all, it's completely unique, utterly unique, but secondly, it's a paradigm or a pattern of example absolutely essential to the spread of the Gospel, through evangelism. So Jesus' mind goes immediately to his death on the cross. Verse 23, “Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the son of man to be glorified.’” Jesus' immediate answer is amazing. Here are these Greeks and he says, "The hour has come." At last, the time has come. Throughout John's Gospel, we have this, "His time had not yet come. The hour has not yet come." But now it's come. The time has come. The hour is at hand. And his mind goes, I think, right to the price he's going to have to pay for Greeks just like this, a price in blood. If they're going to be rescued from hell, if they're going to be brought to heaven, he will have to pay the price. He will have to shed his blood for them. And he doesn't talk about his death directly, but he uses this glory language, “‘The hour has come for the son of man to be glorified.’” And so it's very important for us to understand what this means. To glorify God is to put God on display, to make God radiant and obvious to the people, that God's attributes would be put on display for all to see. And so there's so often this display language connected with the Gospel. It says in Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So it's a display of love. Earlier in Romans 3, we have a display of justice. God displayed his justice, because in his forbearance, he left the sins committed in the Old Testament unpunished, so he had to put his justice on display. Those two, love and justice, are just an entry way into seeing all the attributes of God, all of the characteristics of God on display in Christ crucified. They're all there: Power of God, wisdom of God. That's 1 Corinthians 1. The patience of God, the wrath of God. It's all on display. And Jesus said, "The hour has come for that. The time has come for the son of man to be glorified," not just God, but that Jesus's attributes will be put on display. Son of man comes from Daniel chapter 7, where we have the Ancient of Days, Almighty God, and then we have another one, one like a son of man being brought into the presence of the Ancient of Days, “…and he receives sovereign power and honor and glory, and all peoples and nations and people of every language will bow down and worship him, the son of man.” Jesus calls himself the son of man. He is the fulfillment of the Daniel 7 passage. And this is the cost of their salvation and of ours: He must die, he must shed his blood for them to be saved. And this is glory for his own name. And so he says in verse 24, “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.’” As usual, as he frequently does, Jesus uses an illustration from nature. Many of his parables are agricultural, and he's choosing out this idea of a seed. Now the seed, he says, has a hard shell on it, a protective coating, but that coating must be cracked, that protective shell must yield, and that seed must fall into the ground, and then the shell cracked and that genetic material inside that God made from the foundation of the world for the wheat plant must be exposed to the nutrients of the soil and the moisture, and up will come the plant. It must die, or else this harvest cannot come, and without it dying, then it will never bear fruit, it will remain a single seed. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. Now, the NIV says, “…brings forth many seeds.” The Greek word there is just fruit, it's a common word for fruit, but we know that fruit has seeds in it, and the idea here is of a repeated pattern, there's going to be lots of seeds that also must fall into the ground and die. First, let's finish this one assertion, the death of Jesus is utterly unique, never to be repeated, never again will it be repeated. It's completely unique, it is complete and perfect in itself. It says many times in the Book of Hebrews that Jesus died once for all. Amen? So Hebrews 10:10, it says, “By that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” But the application of that redemption will be, it turns out, by the same principle of sacrificial, self-sacrificial dying, that the redemption was bought to begin with. Jesus won the redemption himself by himself, perfect work of redemption. But the application must be in the same way. Therefore, Jesus's death is not only unique, but it's also a paradigm example of how we also must be, if we're going to be evangelistically fruitful. You must be willing to die to yourself. If you refuse to die, you will remain a single seed. That's the idea here. Jesus’ Command to Evangelize: Follow Him in Dying (vs. 26) Thirdly, Jesus gives us a command to evangelize. He commands us to follow him in his death. Look at verses 25 and 26. You see how he extends it, so he's not just talking about himself. “‘The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.’” Verse 26, “‘Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, my servant also will be.’” So Jesus extends and clarifies this metaphor. His death is unique, but your death will be like his if you want to be fruitful, and in order to do that, if you refuse to do it, if you refuse to fall into the ground and die, you are loving your life in this world too much. That's the image he's giving you here, you're loving your life. It means to love your life in that sense means to yearn for a life of comfort and ease and prosperity and the respect and love of the world. To love your life means to love your reputation, to love your reputation with people and benefits that come from people's acceptance. Conversely, to use the language that Jesus uses, to hate your life is not an absolute command, it's relative. Similar to when Jesus says, “If anyone does not hate his father or mother, or his wife, or his sons, or daughters, or even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Now, Jesus in other places, commands us to love all of those things, but compared to our love for Jesus, it must be like hatred. I think that's the same thing here. We're supposed to actually love our lives in this world and be thankful for the good things God gives us, but relative to this calling, we are to hate our lives. And if we do not, we will remain a single seed, we will not bear fruit. So Jesus, he is commanding his servants to follow him in the same pattern of dying, there is a command. My servants must follow me, there's a command in there. And so, he commands us to do this. So this is a basic principle. The external journey, the Gospel cannot advance without suffering. It can't advance without suffering, it's impossible. Will not advance without pain and suffering, and Paul knew this better than anyone who's ever lived, other than Jesus. Paul knew it very well, and he said to the Colossians church, which he did not plant, he's writing to somebody else's church plant, but he says in Colossians 1:24-25, “Now brothers, I rejoice in what was suffered for you. So I am excited by the missionaries, the evangelists that brought you the Gospel and paid the price, and actually I fill up in my body, my flesh, what is still lacking in regard to the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church.” In other words, there's something missing with Christ's suffering. Now there's nothing missing on the atonement, it is perfect, but now there must be additional suffering to take the message of the atonement out to those who need to hear it. And that's exactly what Paul is talking about in Colossians 1. And so again and again, the advance of the Gospel has been through suffering, the blood of martyrs has been seed for the church. Our brothers and sisters, they conquered the Roman Empire spiritually by dying, literally dying. Some of them sown in animal skins and set loose in the colosseum and packs of wild dogs ripped their flesh till they died, hard way to die. Others were put up on stakes and burned for Nero's dinner parties and other things like this. This has been going on for 20 centuries, is going on in our day as well in other countries. But there are simpler less spectacular ways of dying that are every bit as essential to Gospel advance, you know what I'm talking about. You know what everyone who has ever screwed up his or her courage at the workplace and walked across the floor to share the Gospel with a co-worker, you know that feels like dying. Doesn't it? It feels like dying. I don't want to die. It hurts, and it's hard, and it's not easy. I remember this guy named Ron, I was trying to lead to faith in Christ, and he was this gruff older guy, he was in his late 50s, and tough to talk to, tough to work with. And the Lord convicted me, I needed to share the Gospel with Ron, I'll never forget that. Why him? Hardest guy I could think of that I regularly interacted with at the workplace, and it was lunchtime, and I was like, I don't want to do it, don't want to do it, don't want to do it, and I just don't want to do it, and I don't want to do it. So I remember going around and I was like in my mind, I was getting sweats and all that sort of thing, and I was like, I tell you what, I'm going to put a fleece down, that's what you do in moments like this, I'm going to put a fleece down. If I go around the corner to Ron's work bench and he's sitting there eating his lunch, then that's a sign you want me to share the Gospel with him. But if he's not there, then I won't. So I come around the corner and there he is eating a sandwich. Thank you, Jesus. So I walked up and I just – you know Paul said, “I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling.” And that was going on. And he was like - I don't know what he was thinking, but I'm sure something like this - "What in the world has gotten into you?" So I just, I did a very poor job. But I basically said, "I'm a Christian." He said, "I know." And I said, "Well, I believe in Jesus." "I know," he said. "Well, I think you need him." And then I walked away. That's it. I don't know if Ron's going to be in heaven or not, but I don't think it'll be because of that witness. But friends, we can do better than that, but that's not my message. It's just felt like dying, it just felt like dying that day, and I didn't want to do it, and I just don't think we can really be fruitful if we're not willing to face that and be willing to step forward. It does hurt. It's not easy, it's difficult. We'll get to more of that, but Jesus is promising sweet fellowship for those who serve him. Do you see this? Verse 26, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am there, my servant will be.” Sometimes I feel like there's a distance between me and Christ because I'm not more faithful in this area, that he's out there working and I'm not wanting to go there. But Paul said in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” That's what I want, I want to go, even if the price is suffering, I want to be where he is. And the same thing in Hebrews 13, “Jesus was crucified outside the city gates, let us go to him outside the camp bearing the reproach he bore.” So that's where he is, he's out there, go to him and you'll find sweet fellowship with Jesus. The Stunning Reward for Evangelism: Honor from God (vs. 26) Fourthly, the stunning reward for evangelism, honor from God. Verse 26, “‘My father will honor the one who serves me.’” Boy, this just brings goosebumps to me, it's staggering. Meditate on what's being said here. This is the infinite God of the universe, this is the God before whom the angels hide their faces and they cover their feet. This is the one who dwells in unapproachable light, the one who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and all its people are like insignificant grasshoppers. This amazing infinite God, this eternal omnipotent God will honor you if you serve Jesus. Wow! This is the doctrine of rewards. At the center of reward is this one thing. Look down, same chapter, verse 43, John 12:43. This is what the honor is, it says, “‘They loved praise from men more than...’” Look at that, “‘…praise from God.’” Do you see that? That's it. Now, it's a negative verse, but it tells us what the honor is. The honor is that God will praise you, he'll honor you, and he may even of their indication give you some emblems of that praise, such as crowns, etcetera, the crowns in which we'll glory in the presence of God, but we will cast them down, giving him all honor and praise. But friends, this is better than an Olympic gold medal for half-pipe or free style skiing or ice dancing or curling, friends. Look, I'm not mocking those sports, I'm just saying this is better than any Olympic gold medal from Sochi or any other place, this is an eternal reward from God if you serve Jesus. Now, I don't think this statement is just linked to evangelism only, any way you serve him he'll honor you. But I think the context here is hating your life and dying and bringing forth fruit, so it's home base seems to be evangelism and he'll honor those that step out in faith and trust him. He will praise you. The Troubling Cost of Evangelism: Jesus’ Infinite Suffering (vs. 27) Fifth, the troubling cost of evangelism pictured by Jesus's suffering here, ultimately his infinite suffering. Verse 27, “‘Now my heart is troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it's for this very reason I came to this hour.’” So this is John's glimpse into what's recorded for us in Matthew, Mark and Luke at Gethsemane. Jesus there, as you know, shrinks back from drinking the cup of wrath that God hands them. “‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me, yet not my will but yours be done.’” So Jesus reveals the troubling in his soul over the pain and suffering he would undergo, it is very difficult to suffer, Jesus did not in any way minimize that, but he knew that this was the very reason God had brought him into the world. So also at a much lower level, we evangelists will suffer internal turmoil in our souls. We will be able to say, "Now is my soul troubled and what shall I say? Father, get me out of witnessing?" No, no. No, you orchestrated this whole thing. I am your workmanship. I am created for good works. That's why you left me here. You work the other side of the equation, you've got them ready to hear. I can't say no. I can't. So people are going to attack us verbally, we're going to be at a disadvantage in our careers probably if we're faithful in evangelism. Some neighbors will never wave to us again. I've said before, you're basically going to trade in a mediocre relationship for one good opportunity to share the Gospel, because it wasn't that great anyway, honestly. But don't be afraid to trade it in. Say, "I want to share my faith," and Jesus shows us the way out. Don't shrink back because of your fears. Feel the fear, don't expect to be anesthetized, it's actually how we glorify God. When you feel it, but witness anyway. It's the way we get to glorify him, so don't ask that that go away, just say, "God help me to push through it and be faithful, just as you Lord Jesus pushed through it and you were faithful." The Ultimate Reason for Evangelism: The Glory of God (vs. 28-30) Sixth, the ultimate reason for evangelism must be the glory of God. “‘Now, my heart is troubled and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No. It was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. And then a voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.'’ Now, the crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered, others said an angel had spoken to him, and, Jesus said, ‘This voice was for your benefit, not for mine.’” I love that statement. Alright, well, let's get the benefit from it then, shall we? Let's get the benefit, alright? There are many motives for evangelism. We'll talk more about this in a future sermon, but there are a lot of bad motives for evangelism. The worst in my opinion, one of the worst anyway, is guilt. It's a terrible motivator. It's a bad fuel, it'll make the engine cease after a while. The engine can run for a while on it, but it's going to cease down the road. It's just bad. Friends, I know we've just put a pause on Galatians, but can we not forget the lessons of Galatians? We are justified by faith in Christ alone, not by any works of the law, and that includes our own evangelism. So guilt is a very bad motivator, let's not do it out of guilt or fear that God won't bless us or things like that. Guilt and fear of that sort are not good. How about pride? That's if you're good at it, and you're actually able to lead many to Christ and you start getting puffed up, and along with that comes the whole mega church thing, and there's power and money and all of this river of things that comes based on evangelism. Those are bad motives, fame and all that. There are good motivations, good motivations: Love for people, compassion for others, faith, as we see what's happening, what's going on, where they're all heading, training in habit can be good, it's good to have a habit of doing a good thing, obedience, these are all good motivations, but the best by far is this: The glory of God. You are the light of the world. Put God on display. Put him on display. Make him radiant. Yearn to worship in your witnessing. Say, I serve a great God. Can I tell you about him? I'm at my best in witnessing, I have no fear at all with people when I worship in witnessing. And say, "Let me tell you how great Jesus is. Let me tell you about some of his miracles. Let me tell you about some of his teachings. Let me tell you about the greatest thing he ever did, which is dying and his resurrection." That's great. And then I'm just happy and I'm having a great time even if they're not. [chuckle] I want them to join me in my joy, but that's the best witnessing I ever do, that God would be glorified. This is how Jesus worked through his own anguish. Oh, no, not that I would shrink back. "But Father, glorify your name." Father glorify your name. And by the way, this is pretty cool, I haven't found another example in the Bible of what's going on here. Do you realize what this is? This is the actual transcript of an inter-Trinitarian conversation, it's the only one I can think of in the whole Bible. Some verses have the Father speaking to the Son. In many places we see the Son speaking to the Father. This is the only conversation I have recorded in the Bible. That's pretty awesome, isn't it? It proves the Trinity. Separate persons able to have a conversation. So away with modalism, talk to me about that after the worship, we don't have time. But there is one God in three persons, and they're conversing, and what is the topic? It's the central topic of the universe, the glory of God. And the more you live for the glory of God, the more fruitful you're going to be in evangelism. As John Piper put it in "Let the Nations Be Glad!", let me change it from missions to evangelism. Can I just do that? I don't think John would mind. You can tattle on me and if he gets upset, let me know. But I'm just going to re-read the first paragraph of "Let the Nations Be Glad!" talking about evangelism instead of missions. "Evangelism exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not evangelism, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, evangelism will be no more. But worship will be eternal. God is everything. The glory of God is the best." And this is what God's doing. I love God's answer, doesn't it? "I have glorified it and I will glorify it again." This is what I do, I glorify my name. So if you're weak in evangelism, start with your worship life, fan into flame your sense of the greatness of God in his glory. Have a sense of how great a God he is, get more and more of a vision through faith, through Scripture of the greatness of God and your evangelism will flow from that. The Violence of Evangelism: The Ruler of this World Driven Out (vs. 31) Seventh, the violence of evangelism. The ruler of this world must be driven out. Verse 31, “Now is the time for judgment on this world, and now the prince of this world will be driven out.” Jesus speaks of the judgment of the world. There is a coming wrath, dear friends. There is a coming judgment on this world. That judgment is already and not yet, the time has already come for the judgment on the world, and it will come. There is a coming judgment. There is a wrath that's now and there's a coming wrath. Now, it is because of Satan, that ancient serpent called the devil who lured man into sin in the garden of Eden, that this whole thing even needs to happen. Now, Satan was given authority over the kingdoms of this world. Who gave it to him? I think Adam did. I think Adam surrendered the world to Satan, and now Satan is boasting to Jesus, "The whole world's mine, I can give it to anyone I want to." So that's the ruler of this world, that's Satan. Satan must be driven out, and he is driven out by the power of the Holy Spirit through the word of God, specifically through the Gospel. As we step out in faith, filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with the power of God, speaking the Gospel, Satan gets driven out, progressively driven out, driven out of people's lives, driven out of families and marriages, driven out of hearts and minds, and ultimately driven out of the whole world when Jesus comes back. So we need to know that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, it's not against the people, but against these Satanic force of evil in the heavenly realms, and Satan will not give up his territory easily. One of the letters of the seven churches was to the church at Pergamum. And he says there in Revelation 2:13, “‘I know where you live, where Satan has his throne.’” Well, biblically, Satan has lots of thrones. Could it be that there are some thrones set up here in Durham? Could it be there are some wicked stronghold set up here of strange worldviews and perverse ways of thinking and living that are satanic and must be driven out by the beauty of the Gospel? And we need to know where we live. Now, let me tell you about the suffering that's involved, that's different from Jesus's suffering. Christ suffered from the wrath of God, we suffer from the wrath of Satan. God isn't pouring his wrath out on us, that's not why we're going to suffer. We're going to suffer because Satan will use his people to make our lives miserable as we share the Gospel. That's what's going on. We're not suffering substitutionary deaths under the wrath of God, that's done forever. God's not pouring out his wrath on us, but Satan is giving up his territory very difficultly, and he's going to fight us and God is going to allow us to suffer for a short time. But every time we share the Gospel and someone hears it and believes, we have rescued them from what? “The dominion of darkness and brought them into the kingdom of the beloved Son.” How sweet is that? Colossians 1:13. So let's go for it. The Sovereign Power of Evangelism: Christ Drawing People (vs. 32- 33) Number eight, the sovereign power of evangelism, Christ drawing people to himself. And so we'll end with this, verse 32, “‘But I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all men to myself.’” What does he mean by that? Well, I'm going to tread on a few toes here, but it doesn't mean worship. It doesn't mean singing the song, "Lift him up, lift him up, lift the name of Jesus higher." You heard that one? It's a good song, I like it. It's good, it's just positioned on the wrong verse. Okay? "Lift him up, lift him up, lift the name of Jesus higher. Lift him up, raise his banner to the sky. He said, 'If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.' Lift him up. All you people, lift him up." Okay, but read verse 33, please. What is the lifting up Jesus was talking about? His death. He was lifted up from the earth on the cross, once for all. Now, I've already said, worship is a powerful form of evangelism, but that's not what this verse is talking about. What is he saying? If I die, if I shed my blood, and if I ascend and sit at the right hand of God, and if I send forth the Spirit, I will sovereignly draw all people to myself. That's what he's saying. So if he dies on the cross, he will unleash a force in the universe and on earth for the salvation of people from every tribe and language, and people and nation. That's how it happens. By the sovereign grace of God. Jesus said this, "All that the Father gives me will... " What? "Come to me." Not 90% or 80% or 99%. One hundred percent of the elect will come to faith in Jesus. Amen? But he said on the other side, "No one can come to me unless... " What? "The Father who sent me draws them." So Jesus is called irresistible grace, God will, by the Spirit, draw the elect to faith in Christ and they will come. Not 99% of them, all of them. That gives us encouragement, doesn't it? Praise God for that. Summary & Conclusion So let's look at the summary and we'll talk about practical applications next week. The subjects of evangelism, a foretaste of vast harvest, there are Gentiles who have yet to be saved and some Jews too, praise God. Foretaste. Number two, the unique and repeated patterns of evangelism, the death of a seed, be willing to die to yourself. His unique pattern never needs to be repeated again. His unique death, but it is a pattern. Number three, Jesus has given us a command to evangelize. This is a matter of obedience for us, and if we do it, we will be where he is and share fellowship with him. The stunning eternal reward of evangelism is he will honor everyone who serves him. The troubling cost of evangelism, do not expect it to be easy. Jesus's heart was troubled. Our hearts will get troubled. That's how you glorify God by overcoming that. The ultimate reason for evangelism is the glory of God. The violence of evangelism is expect Satan to give up his territory with great difficulty, he's going to be seeking to beat us up. But finally, the sovereign power of evangelism is, Jesus has the power to draw people to himself. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time that we've had to understand the Gospel, to embrace it. I pray that you would strengthen each one of us. And Father, I pray again, if there are any here that have not yet trusted in Christ, that they would believe and that they would trust and look to Christ crucified and resurrected for their salvation. Help us to be faithful to share with our friends, and neighbors, and co-workers, and even total strangers. In Jesus's name. Amen.

Mack Stiles talks evangelism.

How pushy should we be in our evangelism? Do we have to earn the right to share the gospel? Mack Stiles and a few friends share their wisdom.

How pushy should we be in our evangelism? Do we have to earn the right to share the gospel? Mack Stiles and a few friends share their wisdom.

How pushy should we be in our evangelism? Do we have to earn the right to share the gospel? Mack Stiles and a few friends share their wisdom.