What it means to be an Evangelical

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. So not everyone is called to preach. Not everyone is called to be a missionary. So don't ever let someone make you feel like that.

The Call to Evangelism and Faithfulness in Ordinary Work

You can be faithful whatever you're doing. You know, there were some fishermen who remained fishermen and they still believed in Jesus. But they didn't receive this call to become full-time disciples.

So we do want to bear witness. We can all take part in evangelism. That's sort of the overarching subject this morning. But full-time ministry is something unique. And Jesus really at first, He only gives this call to 12 men.

And there is a lot more people than 12 who followed Christ and believed in Christ. Right? So this is just for the 12. Look at Luke chapter 5 starting in verse 1. It says, So it was as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God that he stood by the lake of what?

Okay. So we see that it's called something different even in scripture. And saw two boats standing by the lake. But the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land.

And he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. But Simon answered and said to him, Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.

Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the net. So you see how they react. Like, come on, we've been out here all night. This is pointless, but okay. You're the master. You're the Lord. I don't know if they recognized him as such yet, but we will do it.

Verse 6. And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he and all who are with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken. And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid. From now on, you will catch men. So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed him. You know, I think there's some spiritual significance to this miracle.

They put the, they obey Jesus. They put the net out and they caught so many fish, they could barely draw them all in. You know, that would happen in their ministry too. They would go and preach. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost and what, 3 ,000 men came to know Christ.

I wonder, was there 3 ,000 fish? It doesn't say that, but it's a sign of things to come. You get this miraculous catch more than you could possibly imagine. And that's how the church would grow. You will go out and catch men.

So much so you're going to have to go out and get help. And you're going to have to bring other people in. And it's just going to go on and on and on. And that's the way the ministry should be. So you see here in Luke's gospel, he gives a lot of extra information.

We see a lot of things that Matthew didn't bring up. But notice the call is the same. From now on, you will catch men. And Jesus says something to Peter. He says, do not be afraid. Part of that is that Peter realizes, after Jesus performs this miracle, Peter realizes he's in the presence of, well, at the very least, a great prophet.

At most, he is in the presence of the Son of God. And Peter's reaction is one of fear. It's like, Jesus, just leave. You don't know the kind of man that I am. Or you do, which is even more frightening.

He just wanted the Lord to depart from him. Did Jesus do that? No. He loved Peter. He was going to use Peter. He says, Peter, do not be afraid. So Peter's first instinct is one of humility and fear. That should be our response towards God.

We should be humble before God, and we should fear God. So Peter recognizes his own unworthiness. And yeah, we can be used by God too, but we have to first recognize it's not in us. The power isn't with us.

There's nothing special about me. There's nothing special about Peter. So he recognizes his own unworthiness, and he may also have been afraid. I mean, just imagine, he's leaving, probably been a fisherman most of his life.

And now he's just going to leave it all behind. He had his own boat. He had a fishing business. And he's just going to walk away and start a new season of life, as they say. I mean, that's a pretty scary thing to do, right?

Some of you have probably left your job and have moved on. It's kind of a scary thing. You don't know what's going to happen. So Peter's afraid for multiple reasons, but notice the message of Christ. He says, do not be afraid.

And Jesus would repeat this so many times. It's one of the most common things that he would say to people. Fear not. Do not be afraid. Let not your heart be troubled. So the disciples would take this message of grace that Jesus would share with them and teach them.

They would take the gospel. That's what it is. They would take the gospel, and then they would bring it to others. And sometimes people don't want to hear the gospel. This is one thing with evangelism we have to recognize.

And certainly it's something that I know as a preacher. Sometimes people say, you're a friendly audience. Still, sometimes you probably don't like some things that I say. But when you go out there, you know, when you go out in the world, it can be kind of a hostile environment at times.

But the admonition is do not be afraid. You know, when you talk to your loved ones, your neighbors, your coworkers about Jesus, about your faith, yeah, you can be timid. You can be, well, how are they going to respond?

What is Jesus saying? Don't be afraid. Okay, so he's giving the gospel, committing the gospel into their care. They're going to bring it to others. So what is the gospel? Go back to Matthew chapter 5, or excuse me, chapter 4, if you're not there.

The Gospel of the Kingdom and the Urgency of Repentance

Matthew chapter 4. This gospel, it's called the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom. You say, well, is that different from the gospel of Jesus Christ? Or the Bible talks about the everlasting gospel.

I think they're all different elements of the same thing, different aspects of the same good news. Look at Matthew 4, verse 23. It says, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching, what?

The gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sicknesses and all kinds of diseases among the people. So the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, which we identify as the gospel, that hasn't happened yet.

So that will be brought in later on. But at this point, the gospel is the good news about the kingdom of God. You realize the kingdom of God, this is good news. Go back to verse 17. We see what Jesus said.

From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom is at hand. So this is the message. This is the message that they would start out with. We talked about this last time about the kingdom.

What did I say? That the kingdom is what? Or what did Jesus say? The kingdom is at hand. It's at the door. It's right there. We don't know when it's going to be brought in. We don't know when Jesus is going to return.

We just know that he is going to return. And when he does return, he brings the kingdom with him. He didn't bring the kingdom with him the first time, because they didn't understand the difference between the first advent and the second advent.

They didn't get it. But when Jesus comes, he brings the kingdom with him. So even, said this last week again, even if the kingdom is a long ways away, even if it's a thousand years away, which I doubt that it is, I highly doubt that it is, but even if it were, it really wouldn't matter because tomorrow, today, at any time, you could breathe your last breath.

So whether it's Jesus returning or us standing before him because of something else, we all need to be ready. So this is the exhortation. This is the urgency that goes along with the good news that, hey, we need to tell people the kingdom is at hand.

Jesus could come back at any generation. We all need to be prepared to stand before the Lord. So the, the message is to tell people out there. I mean, presumably people in the church have gotten right, but the message for people out there is to get right, get right with God.

Once a person accepts Christ as King, then they get baptized into the local church. Then they begin to learn all that Christ commanded, you know, start growing, start serving. As soon as Peter and Andrew left their fishing business, what did they start doing?

They go back to fishing the next day. No, they, they stayed at it. They learned and they served and that's what we should do. But repentance is, is the message. So it's turning, you know, you were going one way before you were a fisherman, you were living your life, doing it one way.

Now you have repented. You have turned. Now you're thinking differently. You're, you're living differently. So I know I stressed this last week and I stress it a lot, but I need to stress it again because repentance is the message.

Repentance is part of the gospel. It's what John the Baptist preached. It's what Jesus preached three and a half years later on the day of Pentecost. What did Peter preach? Acts chapter two, verse 38.

He said, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy spirit for the promise is to you and to your children, into all who are far off, as many as the Lord, our God will call.

The Meaning of the Christian Call and Evangelical Identity

Okay. That, that statement call. Remember the disciples are called into full-time ministry, but you as a believer, you realize you're still called. Every Christian is called. So this is the message. And this is still the message of the Christian church today.

So if you are part of the church, whatever your gifting is, whatever way that you can help out, whatever you can do to add to the ministry, we should all be working together to get this message out to others.

This is called what's the, what's the overarching message. What's the word E begins with an E evangelism. So we should all be taking part to some degree in evangelism. You know, this is why we're called evangelicals.

You ever think about that word? And I know I gotta, I gotta be honest. What passes for evangelical these days? Sometimes I've wondered, do I really want to use this word for myself? So I'll admit that, but the word it's a good word.

Well, we're called evangelicals because we believe the message. We believe the evangel. We believe the gospel. So what is an evangelical? If somebody asked you, what is an evangelical? What would you say?

Yeah. An evangelical is someone who believes the gospel and wants to see the gospel shared with other people. The Greek word, Evangelion. It goes through the languages and it comes down to us in English as evangelical.

An evangelist is someone who preaches the gospel. So Peter, Andrew, James, and John, they could be called evangelists. Have you ever seen those old Bibles? You know, if you have a, an old King James version of the Bible from like 1902 or something, and it'll say St. John, the evangelist.

Have you ever noticed that? Most Bibles don't say that anymore, but yeah, they were evangelists. They were preachers of the gospel. Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church.

If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com. And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett.

Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.