Episode 29: Biblical Distinctives of a Healthy Church (Part 2: Missions and Evangelism)

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Christ Is King and the Church Is Not a Democracy

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it. The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Welcome to the Ruled Church podcast, episode age of Eddie's wife. Is that right? 29. 29? No.

Not quite, not quite. Close, really close.

Episode 29. How's it going, Eddie?

It's going great, man. How are you doing?

I'm doing good, brother. How's church been? Man, it has really been great.

I think I was telling you earlier that we have actually begun to have a regular fellowship meal after our Lord's Day gathering, and it has just been amazing. Now, it's turning the Lord's Day into the Lord's Day, because we are here all day, but man, it's a blessing.

It's a blessing to spend the Lord's Day with saints.

We've been doing that for a few months now, since maybe August, September, well, six months, really. We've been doing it in homes, so really two homes, either my home or Gunnar's home. We kind of alternate, and it's been amazing.

We've had maybe 20, 25 people, probably most of the time, that many with kids and all that, and we just, it's an amazing time. We eat, we talk maybe about the sermon or talk about other theological matters.

We enjoy each other's company, and sometimes people stay for an hour and then leave, and sometimes people stay. We've stayed almost till it's time to go back to church.

Yeah, yeah.

And so when Tom Askell comes, he's preaching for us on March 5th, so we're gonna do it at the church that day. Actually, a little bit easier for some of our ladies probably to do it at the church, but we've just been doing it at home.

You kind of feel more, but your situation's different, but depending on who can, depending on your location, I would encourage everyone to do it, and our friend Jonathan Murdoch, he does it at his church.

This is a wonderful time. Hey, setting aside Sunday, you don't gotta do that other stuff. That's right. Sometimes there is a need that comes up. There are acts of necessity and acts of mercy. You don't gotta dig that hole.

You don't gotta fix that window, whatever. It will get done. Just trust the Lord, you know? So anyway, I'm Alan Nelson, co-pastor, co-host of the Rural Church Podcast, pastor of Perryville Sacred Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

With me is Eddie Ragsdale, my friend, co-labor in the ministry, brother in Christ. Eddie, what are we talking about today?

Missions and the Local Church as the Sending Agency

We're gonna talk about biblical missions and biblical evangelism.

We're picking up our episode from a few weeks ago, couple of weeks ago now, where we talked about biblical distinctives of a healthy church, and that's what we're doing at our church right now. We're going through these distinctives.

Now, by the time this one comes out, I think we'll maybe have finished the distinctives at our church and even look at adopting those officially, you know, as a church and our constitution and those sorts of things.

But this is who we are. And so last time you can check out, I think it's episode 27, we talked about biblical sufficiency, biblical holiness, and biblical preaching. This time we're gonna talk about biblical missions and biblical evangelism.

Let's talk about missions first. Let me read to you our distinctive biblical missions. The missions organization and sending agency of the New Testament is, drum roll.

The local church.

The local church. Local churches should, as providence and the lot of nature dictates, partner with other like-minded local churches to co-labor in missions and send out missionaries. Every local church is required to care about missions.

Missions in the New Testament is not only centered in the local church, but in many ways is also about the local church. That is, the primary focus of missions giving ought to be for planning churches and helping local churches faithfully align themselves with the word of God.

Local churches ought to know the who, what, and why of their missions giving. Mission enterprises, missionaries, evangelists, et cetera, are all accountable to the local churches. Initial thoughts, comments, anything?

No, I think that's really great. You know, we want to see that, you know, I say this all the time, but God did not ordain conventions or denominations or mission societies. Not saying that any of those have to be bad or have, I mean, I'm thankful for brothers who lead missionary societies that serve local churches, that help local churches to be involved in biblical missions, but those are not the ordained means.

He ordained the local church, or we can think about other things like, you know, our church is involved in some recovery type ministry. We have a recovery program here in Marshall, but the Lord didn't ordain the parachurch recovery ministry.

He ordained the church. And so regardless of what ministry it is, but especially when it comes to something as integral to the New Testament as missions, I mean, read the book of Acts. It really takes the local church being involved.

You know, even with the apostle Paul, he was sent out by a local church in Antioch. And so we must be thinking about how the local church is involved in missions.

You know, in a statement like that allows our church, if we choose, allows us to be involved in something like the Southern Baptist Convention if we were to choose. Of course, the problem is, and I'm preaching about this this coming Sunday, which by the time this comes out, I'll have already preached it.

But our relationship with the SPC is waning. And the reason is because they have disregarded some of the very biblical things that I've addressed here. Like the descending agency is the local church. And when you farm that out to something like NAMB or even the IMB, you're ultimately gonna get, you're ultimately gonna reap what you sow eventually.

You know, I'm not saying that there are not faithful people in NAMB and IMB. And I'm not saying that over the years, God hasn't used those organizations. But what has happened is the further removed you get from the local church, the worse the thing.

And that's even true with like seminary and those sorts of things. But the farther out you get from the local church, the more propensity you have to drift. And that's what we're seeing in the SPC. So what we're trying to do with this statement is recover the biblical idea of missions and that the sending agency is the local church.

This doesn't mean that every local church has to send out a missionary. Like I said, a lot of small churches, you pull your resources together, that's what the SPC, that's on paper what the SPC is supposed to be about.

So you can support missionaries together, but the point is you are responsible. You give money to a missionary, you're responsible for what he's preaching, what he's teaching. And you're held accountable before the Lord.

Now, if I give you money, Eddie, for a missionary and you're spending on things I don't know about, that's on you. However, if I give you money and I know that you're spending it on things that are inappropriate or not gospel related or whatever, that then that's put on my shoulders.

I'm responsible for that.

You know, I would like to share one thing I would like to point out about, we're gonna talk about biblical missions and biblical evangelism. And I don't wanna push into talking about evangelism just yet, but I do wanna make a distinction between the two because oftentimes I think that people get the idea that missions is just evangelism somewhere else.

It's just evangelism. It's just evangelism across the county line or the state line or the ocean. And I think it's really important that we realize there is a distinction between missions and evangelism.

Evangelism is when you take the gospel to lost people, I would say within your same context. People, I mean, you're not overcoming many boundaries at all. They, you're just taking the gospel, you're preaching it freely so that people that hear it can trust in Lord Jesus and they can be converted.

They can come to know the Lord. That's evangelism wherever you're at. But missions, true missions is when we're taking the gospel to a place that has little or no access to the gospel, to the Bible, to the church and to biblical pastors.

So when we begin to think about what does it actually mean to do biblical missions? I think we have to be thinking in terms of, and these things were in your statement, but we have to be thinking of terms of preaching the gospel, planting biblical churches and raising up biblical pastors for those churches.

Amen.

Because those are the only ways that you're gonna establish access to the gospel among a people group who right now do not have access to the gospel. And that's different than, if I share the gospel here in Marshall, which I wanna do, right?

We wanna do it every day. Hope every day that members of Marshall First Baptist Church are sharing the gospel here, but there's already access to the gospel here. That's evangelism. But when we take the gospel to, I would even say we go to Utah every year.

What's the distinction there? There's not as much access to the true gospel in Utah as there is here because of the false gospel Mormonism.

Yeah.

So we're really thinking about taking it to new places where people don't have as much access to the truth.

And missions and evangelism, they do go together. They are partners as it were, but I do agree. And that's the point and the distinction, distinctive here that missions in the New Testament is not only centered in the local church, but in many ways is also about the local church.

That is the primary focus of missions giving ought to be for planning churches and helping local churches faithfully align themselves with the word of God. So training pastors, those sorts of things. That's what we are doing in Mexico.

Mexico has access to the gospel, but what we're doing is we're seeking to help train pastors, help equip churches, those sorts of things. And so when you, and there's nothing wrong by the way, there's nothing wrong per se with say, if I just want to go to Utah and go on the streets and preach the gospel.

Yeah, that's great.

There's nothing wrong with that. When it becomes more faithful missions is when it's connected with the local church, you know? And so anyway, these go together. Anything else you wanna say about missions?

I mean, again, organizations, para-church ministries, we're not against those per se. We're not saying those things are automatically bad. They're not automatically bad, but they are meant to be tools and resources for the local church.

Right, and on that point, you know, one more thing I would say about missions, our church still partners with missionary societies to do missions. So for example, it's February as we're recording this right now.

Well, last month in January, we partnered with Disciple of the Nations, which is a missionary society centered in Coleman, Oklahoma. Our brother Dustin Meadows is the president of that mission society.

And we partnered with them. We prayed for them that month, and we supported them with our missions giving in January. So it's not saying that we don't still, that mission societies, they serve us, but they serve the local church so that we can be closely connected to the ministry.

And we were able to pray directly for what Disciple of the Nations were doing, some of their missionaries who were on the field and certain things that they were doing. So we're not saying that you can only be doing biblical missions if you're sending a check that is cashed by the very hand of the missionary.

But we are saying you need as much direct interaction between the local church and those who are on the field as possible, especially when it comes to prayer.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I think that's good. Accountability is a big thing, and that's obviously what the SBC is struggling with right now.

That's right.

And when you farm these out, you're gonna get lack of accountability. All right, let's move into biblical evangelism. Now, this is a long one. We'll probably take it, you know, I'm gonna read these, I'll read two, it's three paragraphs that are each about as long as biblical missions.

I'm gonna read the first two first. We believe that before the foundation of the world, God elected a people for salvation out of the fallen mass of humanity. We believe it is the church's great honor and obligation to proclaim the gospel, the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for sinners to the nations.

All persons, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or sinful behaviors, must be told of the gospel of our Lord Jesus and offered a real opportunity of pardon from our gracious King. Those who do call upon the name of the Lord in saving faith and repentance will be forgiven, justified, adopted, sanctified, and eventually glorified, even as only God himself in his sovereign grace is the very reason for their trust in him as he has first drawn them to himself and given them life.

Salvation from beginning to end belongs to the Lord. Since we believe in the complete and gracious sovereignty of God and salvation, we believe we ought to be of all persons the most evangelistic. God really and truly saves, and he desires his church to proclaim his offer of pardon to all as it brings glory to Christ.

We believe, therefore, qualified men in the church should publicly preach the gospel to lost persons as providence grants opportunity even in the face of rejection and hostility. We believe that every church member is responsible to speak the gospel to their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and relatives, to pass out tracts or write letters, to pray for and support those from the church who are engaged in evangelistic preaching.

Thoughts, comments?

Evangelism, Sovereignty, and the Well-Meant Offer

Yeah, I think when we think about biblical evangelism, the idea is that we want to proclaim the gospel to the whole world, to everyone. We don't know who the Lord has elected. We know that the Lord has a people.

And so when the gospel is preached, we know that it is doing the work that God has sent it to do. And one thing I would want to point out, because we know that God is sovereign over salvation, as you said there, from beginning to end, because we know that is true, it means that our evangelism is not about trying to coerce or manipulate or produce a certain end result, but faithfulness in evangelism is about the right proclamation of the good news of the gospel, sharing it with as many people as possible.

That's right, and being faithful and being sincere. You know, Jesus says in Matthew 11, come to me, 11 verses about 28, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And so how much must you hate someone not to proclaim that, you know, not to tell them?

And let me just say this, there is a motivation for lost souls. Our primary motivation though, and these two motivations really, they go together, our primary motivation is the glory and honor of Christ.

We preach Christ, we pass out tracts, we write letters, we share the gospel, because Christ is worthy to be proclaimed. Psalm 96 .3 says, declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.

Our church is working on memorizing Psalm 96 right now. It's so important, it's like the Old Testament Great Commission, by the way, in a sense, but that's what we wanna do, we declare the glory of God in our preaching, in our evangelism.

And then secondarily, although, you know, maybe you put it as 1A and 1B, we wanna see people converted, and we know God really is going to save people through the proclamation of gospel. So our great focus in proclaiming the gospel is biblical fidelity rather than convert, because if you say, Mo, my focus is to talk this person into following Jesus, then maybe you'll compromise certain areas, and some people have done that.

Well, I don't worry about this. And some people, honestly, well-meaning, like they mean well, but they distort the priority. And because of distorting the priority, they end up compromising gospel. We can't do that.

So our desire is to, you know, proclaim the gospel. And so men are charged with preaching in the streets, those that are qualified, those that can do it. And I would say by qualified, I mean like godly men who can do it, you know?

And then, but everybody should also be evangelistic. We should be sharing tracts. We should be going door to door. Saturday, we did this crazy thing in our church. We went door to door, we knocked on doors, we passed out tracts, and we shared the gospel.

Those are pretty good conversations to have. And we only did it for like two hours. We're gonna do it regularly at least once a month. So anyway, thoughts, comments?

Yeah, and look, this may be a revelation to everybody. You and I don't have the same exact mind on everything. So you and I don't even define preaching in that sense as the very same thing, because I would say, I think the New Testament uses the word preaching to mean the sharing of the gospel outside of the church context.

That being the case, I think anybody can proclaim. Now, I don't think that that means that women and men have the same calling, you know, on the street or whatever. But I do think it is preaching, it is proclamation of the gospel when you share the gospel with one person, with your children, with people in the community.

I think we should all be sharing the gospel all the time. And that is what the New Testament is calling us to do when it tells us to proclaim the word in evangelism. It's giving us this call to go out and share the good news of the gospel with everyone.

And the reason for that, and I think this gets back to what you were saying a while ago, is because it really is good news. Like, we're not offering something that people really can't, they're not gonna be able to be saved.

When we say to somebody, this gospel is for you, if they will believe, if they will believe this gospel, they will be saved. Yes, we know God's sovereign working, we know God's election, but we're not pretending to give them a offer of the gospel.

We are truly preaching, repent and believe and you will be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Yeah, we are proclaiming that.

So I think biblical preaching, evangelistic preaching, I actually think that is certainly reserved for qualified men, except women, they're not preaching, they're not like street preaching or whatever, but they ought to share the gospel.

Wherever it is they may be, men may be, whether men or women are at work or taking a class or whatever it is they may do, they ought to be sharing the gospel. And another thing that you mentioned I wanna hone in on is I believe in what we call a well-meant offer of the gospel.

I'm a Calvinist, I'm a five-point Calvinist. I think that true Calvinism believes in a well-meant offer of the gospel, meaning we don't just offer the gospel to the elect, we don't know who they are.

We offer it to all. And we tell them, so hypothetical situation, if someone comes up to me and says, can I be saved? Can I have forgiveness of my sins? My answer is, well, if you're elect, no, no, no.

My answer is, if you'll repent, if you will repent of your sins and believe the gospel, you really can and truly be pardoned. And if they are elect, God will draw them to himself eventually. If they're not elect, they don't want that.

They don't want Christ to rule over them.

But still I give the well-meant offer of the gospel to everyone. If you really repent and believe, you'll be saved.

Yeah, if you want Christ, you can have him.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

Salvation by Grace Alone and the Spirit’s Work in Conversion

So then I have this last paragraph. Salvation is not achieved. So the biblical evangelist distinctive is a long one. Salvation is not achieved by a sinner's prayer, baptism or any other work of man. Salvation is all of sovereign and unmerited grace planned by the father, accomplished by our blessed redeemer and applied in time by the Holy Spirit.

A person is saved when the gospel is proclaimed and the spirit works through that proclamation in such a way that he moves the sinner from death to life, turning on the light, so to speak. Only then can a person see his or her sin, the breaking of God's law and turn from it in repentance.

Only then can they by faith trust in Christ alone as their only suitable and all sufficient savior. It is a church's privilege to take this message to the world.

That's good. It's really good.

So the reality is if a person is not saved, it's because they don't wanna be saved.

That's right.

If a person is saved, it's because God has broken through that barrier the person has set up, their hard, wicked heart and has brought them under conviction of sin, shown them the reality. You know, this is on my heart because I'm preaching it, but Jesus says, come to me all, and then there's a condition here, who are weary and heavy laden.

So you're self-righteous, you're a hypocrite, you're in love with your sin, you're a happy little rebel. Okay, don't listen to that. But if you hear this call and you're burdened by your sin, you begin to hate your sin, you don't want it, you don't see how to get free from it.

Christ says, look to me, look to me. And we know that's what the Holy Spirit's doing. By the way, that's what the Beatitudes mean, they're blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn. It's not talking about people who cry at funerals.

You're not saying, well, you know, it's not appropriate. You hear someone crying and you say, well, God says, blessed are those who mourn. No, actually, that's talking about mourning their sin. Those spirit, as he works in the hearts of people and they begin to realize I'm impoverished of spirit, I don't got anything that I can offer.

And they begin to mourn their sin. To those, do you say, aren't you listening? Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you, take my yoke upon you and I'll give you rest. I may not be quoting that right.

But anyway, that's Matthew 11, 28. And we know that we preach this gospel to all, to all, to everyone. You don't say, well, they're a different skin color. No, no, you preach. Well, they have a different kind of proclivity to sin.

Their sin is really, really bad. No, no, we preach it to all, regardless of ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, or certain sinful behavior. We take it to all. And we know that God really and truly saves through evangelism.

And churches must be more evangelistic than they are. We're reaping the fruit of 100 years, probably, of poor evangelistic practices.

Lydia, the Philippian Jailer, and the Call to Believe

You know, kind of to bring these two subjects together a little bit, biblical missions and biblical evangelism, you know, this last weekend in our Bible intensive, we were studying Acts chapter 16, verses 11 through 40.

And in that passage, we see the conversion of two different groups of people. And both of those groups center on particular individuals. And so first in that passage, we see that Paul goes down to the place of prayer next to the riverside.

And he proclaims the gospel to a group of women who had gathered there. And it says that there is a wealthy woman, a God fearer. Her name is Lydia. And it says, the Lord opened her heart to receive the word that Paul was preaching.

Or I think it says that to receive the things that Paul had said, that's what it says. The Lord opened Lydia's heart. Lydia was there because she already had an interest. You know, it says she was a God worshiper.

She was interested in the Jewish God. But now here comes Paul, and he is proclaiming her the good news of Jesus Christ. And the Lord opens her heart to receive. It says in the ESV to pay attention, but it's a little stronger than that.

It's really to receive the word that Paul was saying, what Paul was saying, so that she was converted. And we know that because the very next verse says that she was baptized, she and her whole household.

And then just a little later in that very same passage, it gets into the fact that Paul and Silas are now imprisoned for Paul casting a spirit out of a slave girl. And there's a great earthquake and the chains fall off.

And the jailer fearing for his life was about to commit suicide. And Paul cries out for him to not do that because they're all still there. And he rushes in fear and trembling, and he says, what must I do to be saved?

You know, Paul doesn't say, well, first, let's try to figure out if you're elect. Let's try to get that straight. He just simply says to the jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.

And then it says that Paul goes on with more words to speak to the jailer. The jailer believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And we can say to every person, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we may need to do what Paul does there and explain to them who Jesus is, who he is as truly God, who has come to live the perfect life for us, to come to take our place on the cross and die that substitutionary death for our sins, and that he was resurrected so that by believing and trusting in him, we can have eternal life forevermore.

But we can preach to everyone, if you will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.

Amen.

Just as Lydia was, and just as the jailer was.

Amen.

I think that we can sum up these things in this way, an encouragement, hopefully not too much of a rebuke, but maybe some. If your mission practices as a church is to just send a check to an organization and that's it, you're not being biblical.

You need to reconsider what the scriptures have to say. And if your evangelistic practices are just, well, I'm gonna get people to come here once a year for a revival service, or I'm gonna get people to come to VBS.

I don't have a problem with VBS, and I don't have a problem with being evangelistic at VBS, so long as we're not just trying to make people say a prayer or whatever. But the church has to leave its walls, has to go into its community, has to knock on doors, has to preach, has to share the gospel in the marketplace, share the gospel in the stores, in the work places.

It's not evangelism. Biblical evangelism is going out to people and declaring what God has done in Christ and his holiness. So, yeah, if those are areas that you struggle in, here's the big thing. What does 1 John 1, 9 say?

Confess, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. So sometimes we hear things like this, we're like, well, we get mad or whatever. Like, no, no, don't get mad. Search the scriptures and repent, and then say, Lord, how can I be more faithful in missions and evangelism?

Eddie, I think God will honor a prayer like that and a heart to do that, don't you?

That's right.

Hey, we've all messed up. You've messed up, I've messed up. We've all sinned even in our approach to missions and evangelism. And yet God is so faithful and he's so patient with us. And so we humble ourselves before him and say, Lord, I wanna be more biblical in leading my church in missions and evangelism.

That's a prayer that I believe the Lord is ready to answer.

Healthy Local Churches Strengthen Missions and Evangelism

You know, one final thing I would wanna share on both that I think impacts both of these is the healthier the local church is, the more impactful and the more the church is gonna be able to be biblical in both missions and evangelism.

The reality is that the Lord uses a healthy church to shine the light of the gospel into a community and to support the spread of the gospel globally. And so we ought to be concerned about the health of our local church because it's not just our church that is affected.

It is the glory of Christ. It is the kingdom of God. It is the proclamation of the gospel that is affected by the health of every local church. And so if we wanna see our communities brought to Christ, then we need to do the hard work of loving one another and having healthy biblical local churches.

Amen.

And I'm gonna just tell you, and we both know from experience, you say from your pulpit, who wants a healthy church, raise your hand. Probably everybody's gonna raise their hand. I mean, it's similar to saying who wants a healthy body?

You wanna be healthy? Well, everybody, well, yeah, I wanna be healthy. Okay, now start trying to do it. And the number shrinks. You gotta eat, you gotta jog. You gotta like, eh, I don't want it that much.

But I think I like the idea of healthy body. Okay, same with a healthy church. There's gonna be a lot of people say, I wanna be healthy. I wanna be healthy in missions. I wanna be healthy in evangelism.

But when that means breaking away from some of these status quo things we've been doing that's actually been wrong or even bringing reproach on the name of Christ, you're gonna start getting people that'll be upset.

And so, but let me just say this. It's a worthwhile endeavor. So keep pressing on, brothers. And if Eddie or I can be a service to you or pray for you in some way, be sure and let us know. I know on past episodes, we've shared how to contact us.

You can always look us up on Facebook or Twitter. But as always, brother, it's been a joy talking with you. You got anything else to say?

No, man, it's good to talk to you again this week, brother.

Yeah, thank you guys for joining us on this episode of the Rural Church Podcast. Say goodbye, Eddie.

See you guys next week.

The Church as God’s Work and the Masterpiece of God

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?