Our Call to the Work of Evangelism

Amen. I really, really like that song. It's one that I do have on my desk that I use from time to time in my personal prayer life facing a task unfinished. And that's what we're looking at this morning. That's where in God's word, the task, the job, and the work of evangelism. I really think that fits where we're going. Appreciate that, Brother Keith. Well, go ahead and take your Bible this morning. I'm going to ask you to turn to three different places, three different portions of Scripture. It's not that often we do that.

I think we did that a couple of messages ago, but we're going to look at three portions of Scripture throughout the message. I want you to turn to Acts 13 starting in verse 1 first. Mark that place in your Bible. Then 2 Timothy 4 verse 5. That's where we were earlier in our Scripture reading. And then Matthew 28 verse 16, or starting in verse 16. You can leave your Bible open to Matthew 18. That's where we'll start. So Acts 13 verse 1. 2 Timothy 4 verse 5. And then Matthew 28 starting in verse 16. Now, looking back at last week's message, we examined pillar number 6. Of course, we're in our study of the 10 pillars of the church.

And the title of the message was "The Purposeful, Powerful Work of Prayer." The purposeful, powerful work of prayer. Now, in retrospect, I think we should notice two things about that message. I think we should see first that prayer is work. It is a job. It is our duty. And not only is it work, not only is it a job, a duty, it is our work. And I use that word purposely, "our." This is our work. This is your work. This is mine. Now, to get specific, we need to see that we as a church have a lifetime of prayer. We have a lifetime of prayer work just in praying for Christ to build His church through us.

We learned that in our study of the church. It's Christ's church. He's declared that He will build it, and He builds it through us. So we have a lifetime of prayer just in praying for the work of the church through us. We also, as a church, have a lifetime of prayer as we are praying for lost sinners to come to salvation in Christ. We know that salvation begins and ends with God. A man can never come to faith in Christ without God intervening in their life. So we have a lifetime of work praying for the lost. Now, I'll bring those two areas up to show us that we have a lot of prayer work.

There's a lot of prayer just in those areas to keep us busy. Now, I want to take a minute, and I want to glance back at our list of the ten pillars, and I want to categorize them in a way that will help us. Now, we're digesting each message, trying to digest along the way, but we're also digesting big picture of the series itself. But I want you to see that the first four of the ten pillars of the church are what I call the big four. We have the church, we have the gospel, we have the Word of God, and then we have salvation or saving grace. In many ways, as I see it, these are the most important.

If we miss it on the institution of the church, if we miss it on the importance or the purity of the gospel, if the Word of God is not our authority, and then if we move away from the salvation of sinners, really we might as well close up the church house. I mean, we might as well close it up and just go fishing on Sundays, because that just seeks the ship, simply. And I know I've said this various times, we can't falter on these. Now, I want us to see three of the pillars in a different way.

I want us to notice number six, prayer, and then the one we're looking at this morning, number seven, evangelism, and then our next one on the list, number eight, missions. I group these together in a category that I call our responsibility. We are to embrace this teaching, and we are to see that this teaching is what we roll up our sleeves, and we get busy doing. These three are closely connected to the others. What I mean by that is this, evangelism, it's our job, it's our duty, it's our responsibility, but it's connected to the gospel, because when we go out, it's the gospel that we proclaim.

And then prayer, prayer is our work, prayer is our duty, prayer is our job, and it's connected to salvation, because we understand that God must work in a sinner's life to bring them to faith in Christ, so He compels us to this work of prayer. And then everything that we're learning, evangelism and missions, and everything that we're learning in this series, it must come out of God's Word, so we're subjecting ourselves to the sufficiency and the authority of the Word. So all of this is just connected. I used the language last week, it all overlaps.

So I try to bring this type of information, categorizing them and seeing them in this way to help us get our minds around, not just the individual messages, but the series itself. Now, let's progress in our study. Again, we're moving along. I have, like in this too, a house. We're just going to the next room of the house, which is pillar number seven, and that is the work of evangelism. Pillar number seven, the work of evangelism. Now, unlike some of this material, it has been quite some time since we've addressed evangelism in a message by itself.

Truthfully, I went back and looked at much of my notes, and it's been really since our last study of the ten pillars, which is back in 2013. And this morning, we're going to look at, to begin the message, the call to evangelism, and then we're going to look at examples of evangelism, right here in the New Testament. And then we're going to make some specific application individually and for us in the church. So, I will give us the title of the message this morning, and the two major truths, the call to evangelism, and then examples of evangelism.

And then when we get into the application, I'll put that information on the screens for you as well, because I really want you to take this information down, because we want to go home and study our notes. We want God's Word and the message from God's Word to continue to speak to us, not just today, but throughout the days and weeks and even years to come. So, you see how we will divide the verses. You see how we will start our message, and our first major truth is, the command or the call to evangelism. Now, here we really need to see, we really need to use these two words that are before you, this word command and this word call.

Both of these words need to be used, and both of these words are accurate. Now, to me personally, I thought about it like this this week in my study. The word command is a little less personal, is it not? But we have to see that evangelism is a command. I weave them together like this, these two words. Because we love our Lord, the Lord that saved us, we are compelled and we are called to obey this command, this command of evangelism. Through the work of the Holy Spirit in us as born-again believers, this call is personalized, this made real to us as individual Christians. And so the command becomes a personal calling.

So here we're going to examine this command, we're going to examine this call to evangelism. Simply I'm saying it like this, that because we love Christ and the Holy Spirit is working in us, He makes this command real and personal and makes it a calling in all of us. Now, we're going to look at two places in Scripture. We're going to look at Matthew 28 and then we'll go over to that 2 Timothy chapter 4 passage. So there are two observations out of these verses I want us to see. First, I want us to see this, this call to evangelism in what's called the Great Commission or the Great Commission passage.

Look with me in Matthew 28 starting in verse 16. "But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated." Now we know this is after the resurrection, but before the ascension. "And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.'" Verse 19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Verse 20, "Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded or given you, and lo, I am with you always to the end of the age." Now here's what we have that is traditionally called the Great Commission.

Although this phrase, the Great Commission, is not found in the verses. Now many of our English translations will have a heading above verse 16. I know in my New American Standard version here above verse 16 there's the heading, the Great Commission. But here we have that Jesus is gathered with a group of disciples after the resurrection. Now the phrase in verse 17, "Some doubted," it seems to indicate that there were more than the 11 disciples that were present here. Some have suggested that He met with this group in Galilee because there's where most of His followers, that's where they were located.

Now to me this must have been a group larger than the 11 disciples. But notice Jesus' purpose here with the 11 and I believe with other Christians. He is giving them instructions about their future ministries. Notice what Jesus commands. He does not command them to go. Now in the original language it's better translated as you are going. The command here is make disciples as you are going, as you are going out. Well to make disciples of lost people throughout the world they must be evangelized first. So there is an obvious two-fold calling here.

First go out and evangelize the lost and then second teach them to obey all that I have taught you. So this was a two-fold work. This was a two-fold work. But we must see that the disciples and these other believers they cannot go out and make disciples unless they go out and evangelize. So we see the evangelization of the lost in the Great Commission passage. But then second notice or let's turn to this example in 2 Timothy chapter 4. Notice second in Paul's instruction to Timothy. I've already given us the context here. This is the church at Ephesus. Paul is instructing Timothy to do his job as a pastor. But what does he say in verse 5?

"But you be sober." That means clear minded in all things. And do her hardship. And do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry. Now here we have an interesting verse. Here Paul uses a word translated in our English versions evangelist. Now this word is only used two other times in the entirety of the New Testament. In Acts 28 verse 8 we see that there is a disciple named Philip who was called an evangelist. And then in Ephesians 4 verse 11 we see that God gives the church the office of the evangelist. That's what Philip was. Now a question here. Was Paul calling Timothy to be an evangelist? What was Paul calling him to do?

Some of you might say, "Well I thought you said earlier he was the pastor." Well he was. He was the pastor of this church. Simply Paul is calling Timothy to do the work of evangelism. Not to be an evangelist. He was called to do this work of evangelizing the lost in the church and within the city. So simplistically what do we see here? First Jesus gives the command to evangelize the nations to his disciples and those other believers who were gathered there in Galilee. You could say that they represented the church which would be birthed through them in the very near future.

They were called to this work and they continued in this work out of their love and their calling from Christ. Much later in this 2 Timothy passage we see Paul calling Timothy to do the work of an evangelist, to do the work of evangelism. He was to do this work in the church and in the city that he lived. Paul and Timothy, this was a fleshing out of the great commission passage which was given in Matthew 28. Now I want to show you a bigger picture of application here. I guess I use the language that I use frequently. Let's take a couple of steps back. And I ran across some information that helps us here.

This comes from some John MacArthur teaching. Now I'm going to paraphrase some of what he says. He's commenting on 2 Timothy 4-5. So I'll paraphrase what he says and then I'll quote him as well. Notice. The verb form which is an action word, the verb form of the word to evangelize is found in more than one form 54 times in the New Testament. The noun form of the word gospel or good news is found 76 times in the New Testament. Now I'm quoting here. Both words are used not only in relation to evangelists but also of the responsibility of every preacher and teacher to proclaim the gospel of salvation. So what does that do?

That shows us bigger picture this work of evangelism and reaching the law. So what do we see here? What do we see here? The apostles, they were called to evangelize. There was the office of the evangelist in the New Testament and there's only one mentioned by name and his name is Philip. The other disciples there at Galilee and I do believe there were others there, they were given this call. Timothy, he was given this call. And many others in the New Testament received this call and they lived out this call. From Matthew 28 all throughout the New Testament we see the call to evangelize.

This was a command and out of their great love for Christ and the personal work of the spirit within them, these Christians from Matthew 28 all the way to the book of Revelation, they obeyed this command. So what do we see? What do we see out of these verses? There is this call, there is this command to evangelism. Now I want us to move on. Let's notice our second major truth. I want us to see the examples of evangelism. The examples of evangelism. Now when we look at examples of evangelism in the New Testament, truthfully there are just too many to list. That means we could be here all day and night and never get to the bottom.

Some are obvious, some are great and obvious examples, but then there are some examples that are rather hidden. I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. In our Sunday night adult Bible studies that we are going through, we are going through the book of Colossians. Well we have learned that most likely it was a man named Apapras who evangelized the people in Colossae and helped organize the church. And I don't have a problem believing that. So if Apapras was used to evangelize those people there in Colossae, he is kind of hidden because that can be overlooked. Now I want to give us three examples.

And I'll choose these examples purposefully out of the many within the New Testament. Now our first example is Jesus himself, Jesus and his evangelism. Now just like with the examples, when we look at Jesus as an example, where do we start? Where do we start? Truthfully the entirety of Jesus' earthly ministry was about reaching the lost. I think we should take our entire lives and we should be students of how Jesus evangelized the lost. I think we should never get away from studying how Jesus interacted with people. But I want to point out something that I have been mulling over for quite some time in my own study.

We need to see that Jesus was a friend of sinners. His way of interacting with sinners was extremely radical and extremely controversial in his day. Now there are two verses I want to give us here that will show us Jesus' heart in this evangelism. The first passage is Luke 7. Luke 7 starting in verse 33. I want to read this verse for you. I encourage you to study it on your own. Luke 7 starting in verse 33. "For John the Baptist," and this is Jesus talking, "For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine and you say he is a demon." This is the religious leaders who are accusing John.

And then verse 34, "The Son of Man," talking about himself, "has come eating and drinking and you say, 'Look at him, a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'" Here we see that John the Baptist came not eating bread and not drinking wine. But Jesus came and he did eat and he did drink. Now of course both were attacked by the religious leadership. But what does this mean here? This does not mean that Jesus was a drunkard. Listen to me. Jesus was not a drunkard. He never was a drunkard. This simply means that Jesus lived as an ordinary person. John the Baptist was what was called a Nazarite.

So his lifestyle was radically different from the ordinary. But Jesus came eating and drinking and living as a normal person with everyday normal, sinful people. But then the second verse that helps us here. Luke 5 starting in verse 30. Luke 5 starting in verse 30. "And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples saying, 'Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?'" Verse 31. "And Jesus answered to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.'" Verse 32.

"I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Here we see that the religious leadership criticized Jesus for associating with tax collectors and sinners. The implied issue here was friendship. Jesus not only associated with sinners, but he was a friend of sinners. Simply he loved them. But also see in the verses that it was not the religious leaders who were righteous. They thought that they were righteous. The tax collectors and sinners, they knew they were sinners. They knew they were outcasts. They knew that they had great needs in their lives. And we need to see something here.

Salvation cannot come to the self-righteous. And that's what the religious leadership were. Self-righteous. Many times outcasts and sinners know they have great needs. Therefore they are more open to the gospel message. Now I want to change this a bit. I said earlier it was Jesus and his evangelism. But oh, I think we need to say it like this. Jesus in his evangelism, he loved sinners. So that's our first example of evangelism. Now let's notice our second example of evangelism. We have what I call the church at Antioch. The church there at Antioch. Turn with me to that Acts chapter 13 passage. Acts chapter 13 starting in verse 1.

I'll read down to verse 3. "Now there were at Antioch," Antioch was a city. "Now there were at Antioch in the church that was there prophets and teachers." "Barnabas and Simon who was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manen." "Who had been brought up with Herod the Tetris Arkansas." "And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' "Then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away." Now here in these verses we see the beginning of Paul's first great missionary journey.

Truthfully this is probably the most overlooked portion of Paul's missionary journey story. Here we have a healthy work, a healthy holistic work. We have a sending church which is Antioch. We have a church recognizing God calling Barnabas and Paul to this great evangelistic work. There was an internal call for all of them that was included. There was an external call as well. There was prayer, there was fasting, and then there was a work of the Holy Spirit in them, in the church and in Paul and Barnabas. But what is the point here? The church at Antioch was an evangelistic church.

They sent Barnabas and they sent Paul out to this great evangelistic work. Now if you go to the end of Chapter 14, we see the completion of this first missionary journey. And Paul and Barnabas, they come back to Antioch and they come back to report to the church all that God was doing through them. Now what am I showing you in this example? The church at Antioch, they were an evangelistic church and a great example. Now then our third example, I want us to see Paul and his ministry. Paul and his ministry. Now just like I said about Jesus' ministry, where do we start? I say the same thing about Paul. Where do we start?

We have such a great amount of information about Paul and his life and his ministry. But I want to give you the big picture of Paul's ministry and then three specifics out of Paul's ministry. Paul, he went on three major missionary journeys. Many different people traveled with him at different times. And he went throughout the non-Gentile world in those three missionary journeys. He traveled thousands of miles by land and by sea. He suffered greatly in the work and ultimately he died from preaching the gospel. But if we take all of Paul's ministry and we boil all of that down, we will see three basics.

First, Paul went and he evangelized the lost from city to city, Jew and Gentile alike. It did not matter who they were. Then second, he organized those he evangelized into the church. And then third, he ministered to those churches for their spiritual growth and their needs and their health. Simply, that is all that Paul did. But we must see how the work was started. When Paul went into a city, he started with evangelism that is reaching people with the gospel. So in summary, what do we see here, just with these three examples? I'm going to work in reverse as I summarize. Paul evangelized the lost. He obeyed the great call.

He obeyed the great command of the great commission. Now, what was his heart? He was just like Jesus. He loved sinners. He loved the Jews and he loved the Gentiles. Now, this had to be a work of God in Paul because for Paul to love sinners like the Jews and like the Gentiles, it had to be of God. The Jews hated Paul and then Gentiles were hated by the Jews. But look at who was behind Paul in this work. There was always that home church of Antioch and all of those people there. They were obeying the call of the great commission in their own city of Antioch and through Paul and his great missionary work. And what was Antioch's heart?

They loved sinners as well. Paul and his associates, they loved sinners as well. Those in the church at Antioch and Paul and his associates, they were simply doing what Jesus did. They were obeying the command and they were obeying the call to the great commission. Now, for us, I want us to see what should be impacting us here this morning. All of us, no matter who we are or where we have come from, if we profess the name of Christ, there are things that should be impacting all of us. The call to obey the great commission, it is our duty. The call to obey the great commission, it is our responsibility. We should be exactly like Paul.

We should be going. We should be exactly like the church in Antioch. We should be sending. And we should be like Jesus. We should love sinners. This is for us, this command, this calling, this work. It is for us in our day. Now, I want us to see something here. To me, this is the key to the whole work. I mean the key to the law. For a command to be a calling, it has to be personal. The command to obey the great commission became a calling for the church at Antioch and Paul and Barnabas when God worked personally in them. God took the word, God took the command, and He personalized it in their life, in their circumstance, and for them.

Let me go back to the passage out of Acts 13. And I'm going to prayer phrase some of it, and I'm going to read certain portions. Now there at Antioch, there was the church. And then we have a listing of prophets and teachers and individuals in the church. And then verse 2, "While they were ministering to the Lord," that simply means worshipping. "They were praying and they were fasting." And what happens? The Holy Spirit said. See, there's this personalized work of God, set apart from a Barnabas and Saul for the work which you have called them. And what does it say? "Then when they," that's Paul, that's Barnabas, that's the church.

"When they fasted and when they prayed, they laid their hands on them, and they sent them out." All of them were involved. All of them were a part of this personalized work. And look, I'll be honest with you. If you would have asked them, they would have said things like this. God has called us to this work. God has spoken to us in this circumstance. God has worked in us. And look, the people in the church, and Paul and Barnabas, they were changed morally. Their hearts were changed. They experienced an irrevocable work of God in them. This was an irrevocable reference point in their lives. And we need God to do this work in us as well.

This personalized calling to obey this command. We all need this work. And I believe far more than we know. I want to transition into the message. I want to transition to some application. And I think that this application can do many things in each of us. I think it could instruct us. I think it could correct us. I think it could rebuke us. I think it could encourage us. I think it could just do a whole lot for us. Now, this is incomplete because you could add to this. But I believe this will facilitate this work in all of us. I pray all of us. Now, I want us to see what I call our heart in this evangelistic work. Our heart. These are musts.

We must have the proper heart in this evangelistic work. First, we must have a love for God and a love for God's glory. Why do we do what we do? Ultimately, we do it for the glory of God. Well, I love one of the themes out of our friend and brother, Ed Lacey. Out of his ministry, his theme in his heartbeat is doing God's work, God's way for God's glory. What is he saying? He's saying we're doing God's work from God's word. God's word tells us God's way. So what is he saying? We go to God's word and God's word tells us God's work. And our heartbeat, our motivation is for the glory of God.

And so when we approach evangelism, it should be for the glory of God. We share Christ. We share the gospel. We love sinners. For the glory of God. For the glory of God. And then second, in this heart, we must have a love for God's gospel. A love for God's gospel. Now, a question here. Why do I phrase it that way? God's gospel instead of the gospel. I'll give you a verse, Romans chapter one, verse one. I want you to go study that on your own. Romans chapter one, verse one. We have Paul starting this letter to the Romans, the Roman church.

Paul says this, "I am Paul, a servant or a bondservant, a slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God." What does Paul call it? The gospel of God. He calls it the gospel of God because it's God's gospel. God determined forever ago the gospel plan, the work of the gospel. So this is not an invention of man. It is God's. That's why we can't dare alter it or touch it or manipulate it in any way. That's why we must go to God's word and let God's word teach us what the gospel is. So in this evangelistic work, our heart must be a love for God's gospel. And then third, our heart must be a love for sinners.

I can't say that enough. Jesus is our example and then Paul is our example. One example in the ministry of Jesus I cannot ever get over is how Jesus went to the Samaritan woman in John chapter four. He broke social rule after social rule after social rule. Why? Because he loved a sinner. She was a sinner in multiple ways. She should have been an outcast, but he loved sinners. And listen, we must love sinners. If we engage lost people and we do not love them, it's just words. It's just an outward obedience to a command.

No, we love sinners and we want them to have God's gospel and we want that work to do to take place in their life for the glory of God. And then fourth, our heart in this evangelistic work must be this. I love for the conversion of sinners. A love for the conversion of sinners. I'll give you an example. Many of you know that one of the men of our church recently came to came to Christ. God had been dealing with him for quite some time. Russ shared with us his testimony a few Sundays ago about how God had been dealing with him. And God got him to that place where he experienced a new birth and he put his faith and trust in Christ.

And then I've seen Russ share with many of you about coming to faith in Christ. And listen, when we hear of the conversion of sinners, listen, that should just well up in us. We love that. We love it. And when I see Russ sharing, I love it all the more. Now, let me turn this around. When you see someone like Russ sharing or someone like myself sharing about our conversion, do you love it or do you run from it? Oh, my dear friend, if you run from it, if you're not drawn to it, if you don't want to revel in that and have joy in that, I have to wonder what's going on in your life.

See, we must have a heart that loves to see sinners converted to Christ. We just never get over it. So what do we see? Our heart in this evangelistic work. And again, you could add to this list. Let me continue. I want us to see our hindrances in this evangelistic work. We need God to help us identify hindrances. And you might get out of this list. These are just some that have been on my heart this week. Well, the first hindrance that I believe that we have to evangelistic work is just ignoring the command, ignoring the teaching of the Scripture. We ignore Matthew 28. We ignore the call. We ignore the command. We ignore all of the examples.

Now, there are many reasons why we do this. Maybe as a Christian, we just get apathetic. Maybe as a Christian, we just get too busy. Maybe we become too self-centered in our life. Maybe you boil it on down just the old-fashioned selfishness. Maybe there's a little fear involved. You're just afraid. There are a whole host of reasons why we can ignore the command. But I don't care what the reason, if we ignore the command, it is sin. If we ignore the call, it is sin. "Oh, Pastor, you don't know how shall I am. It's still sin." "Oh, Pastor, I don't know enough. It's still sin." "Oh, well, you know, I've just been too busy." "No, it's still sin.

It's ignoring the command." My question is, are you ignoring the command? And then the second hindrance, I know I'm bringing this back up. For some, it's a lack of love for sinners. It's just a lack of love for sinners. There are some people in the life of the church, they do not like sinners. Those disciples did not like being in Samaria in John 4. They didn't like that Samaritan woman. When they came back on the scene, they couldn't believe Jesus was talking with her. And so sometimes it is a lack of love for sinners. And what did Jesus do? He said, "Look around you. The harvest is plentiful." What is He saying?

There are Samaritan sinners everywhere, and you need to see them. And listen, we must love sinners. And let me tell you something. If you're truly converted, I don't care if you've been saved by God's grace for a year, 10 years or 20 years, you never get past the fact that you were a lost sinner. You never get past that. And look, if you don't love sinners, I have to question if you really do love God. Because what is the greatest commandment? Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And what is the second? To love your neighbor as yourself. And our neighbors are lost sinners.

And then the third hindrance is what I call erroneous theology. There are some people, they just say it like this. Well, if people are going to be saved, God's just going to do it. If sinners are going to come to faith in Christ, God's just going to do it. God can do it, and He's going to do it with or without us. Well, that's erroneous. That's wrong. I'll remind you that that is what was taking place in Baptist work in England during the days of William Carey. William Carey was called of God to give his life to missions and to go to India. And they were religious leaders that looked at him and say, "Son, stay home.

If God wants to save the heathen in India, God will do it without you." Well, that's just terrible theology. No. We are the love sinners and go. It is God that uses us. I'm so glad that Paul took that serious and went. And then fourth, fourth in these list of hindrances, not believing or understanding that people are lost. Now, personally, I believe this one is one of the biggest hindrances to people like us in the church today and in our evangelism. We just have a hard time believing that people in our families, people even in our churches, our sons and our daughters, our neighbors, they are lost and without Christ.

You know, we live in the Bible Belt, and everybody says that they've been saved, and everybody says they're a member of a church. But look, we know them by their fruit. That's why we must study what true Christianity is. And some people have a hard time believing and understanding that people are lost. And I know that's hard. I know that's hard. Sometimes it's hard to just put a name with that and a face with that, but we must do that. It's God's Word that shows us who are truly converted Christians, and these are hindrances. And then our last point of application is our approach here at Nolan.

You might say, "Well, Pastor, how does this all shake out in our life and in your life and in the work of the church?" First of all, this is a personal work. Personal. Yours and mine. You're different than I am. I'm different than you. But it's still my job, and it's still your job. So personally, we should love sinners. We should love sinners, no matter their color, no matter their age, no matter where they are in society. We should look into our lives. We should look at where we go. We should look at who we see. God has placed all kinds of people in our lives. We come into contact in our jobs, in our workplace.

We come into contact with sinners in our family. We come into contact with sinners when we go shopping. We come into contact with law sinners in our neighborhoods. We just simply need to look into our lives and ask ourselves, "Who are we coming in contact with?" And then personally, we should engage law sinners. This takes time. This takes effort. This takes a special equipping from the work of the Spirit in our life. But God can and will empower us for the work. We can't do it. He does the work through us, and He's entrusted this work for us. So this is our work. This is your job. This is our responsibility.

Wherever you go, whoever you are, this is a personal work. I referenced the church in Antioch. Paul went out at some stage. The Christians at Antioch still went out at Antioch evangelizing, but yet Paul, he went over the cold dark mountains, did he not? It's a personal work. But then second, I want us to see this is a corporate cooperation. See, as God's brought us here as Christians together, as God has united us here in this work of the church, sometimes we engage in this work together.

There are times when you are ministering to people, and you're witnessing to sinners, and then they come into the life of the church and in our lives, and then we begin to minister alongside you. I can't tell you how many times. There have been people that Brother Keith has been ministering to, and he's been sharing the gospel with. And I've come in contact with him, and I just cooperate in that work. We should be working together in this work. As you are reaching people and ministering to people, I should come alongside you. And as you bring people to church with you, we should come alongside you in this work.

It's an individual personal work, and it is also a corporate work. Again, we see that in Antioch in the life of Paul in his missionary journeys. And then we should be ascending people. Corporately, we should be sending people. We should be sending people out. But then I'll add to that, I want you to see that we are sending people out. Quite a few years ago, we sent a young man out named Jonah Henderson as he was going into the Marine Corps. And he has been a witness for Christ all of the time. He's been in the Marine Corps. And then some of the time that I've spent with him, I've expressed my desire to send people out.

And Jonah looked at me and said, "Brother Chris, I correct you. You are sending people out. You sent me." Just this week, he texts me to individuals. Please pray for them. Y'all know that he's going on some maneuvers. And he said, "These individuals are coming with me, and I'm going to have an opportunity to share. Please pray for these men." What am I showing you? We're sending people out. There are others in the military that are around the world that we are sending them out as well. So we are ascending people. Now what am I trying to show you? This is a corporate work. And then last, I want us to see our church programming.

There are times when we do programming, things in the life of the church, to help facilitate evangelistic work. Now to be honest with you, we look forward to more types of events such as this. I look forward to more evangelistic meetings. I look forward to more outreach type events. Why? We're not using gimmicks to get people to do things that only God could do. No. When we understand salvation, and we understand how God works, then when we use programming, we use it properly. I know, let me tell you something, church. When we all are bitten by the bug, if I can use that language.

When God has done that work in us, and God is using us to love sinners, and we're sharing the gospel, and they're coming to church with us, and we're bringing them to the gospel to be preached here in the life of the church, and then when we have events that are designed to touch lost people, look, God will use it. So what am I showing you? This is our approach here at NOLA. It's a personal work, a corporate work, and then even in our programming. Now as I conclude, I take us back to the title of the message. Title of the message is "Our Call to the Work of Evangelism." It is our call.

We need God to work this call out in us, just like He did in Antioch. Personalize it, make it our heart. We need that irrevocable work of God in us, where we are never the same. God uses us like never before. We need to see that this is our call, and we need to see that this is our work. This is our job. This is our responsibility. This is our work. Lost sinners are worth it. Lost sinners are worth it. I'm so glad there was a church who saw me as worth the work of evangelism. And listen, God's great gospel is worth it. The gospel that He invented forever ago, it is worth this work. Christ Jesus is worth it.

The suffering of Christ on the cross is worth the work of evangelism, and then God's glory is worth it. Because when God brings sinners to faith in Christ and puts them in the life of the church, it is all about God's glory and God's glory and God's glory. So what do we look at this morning? Our call to the work of evangelism. Let's pray.