The Key to Empowered Evangelism

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:00
For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right, rather than for doing what is wrong.
00:11
1 Peter is a book that draws some very stark contrasts between hope and suffering.
00:17
Not in a way that says that those who have hope don't suffer.
00:20
That's not there.
00:22
But what it does say is that those of us who hope in Christ will suffer, but we have a hope that will carry us through.
00:31
Peter writes to remind the believers of the hope that they have.
00:35
In chapter 1 and verse 3 he describes it as a hope that is an inheritance, that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
00:42
He describes it as a living hope, and a hope that leads to rejoicing.
00:47
On the other hand though, he also talks about trials, and suffering, and pain.
00:52
But he doesn't just stop there to say that there will be trials and pain.
00:55
He gives much encouragement to us as believers in how we might endure those things.
01:01
In chapter 1 and verse 7 he says that our faith, though tested by fire, will result in praise, and glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
01:11
This is the hope that we have as believers in Christ, a hope that cannot be shaken.
01:16
Yet we live in a world that is full of pain and full of suffering.
01:19
And the reality is this, if we truly live for Christ, there's going to be suffering in our path.
01:27
Now there are many preachers today who will stand in pulpits across America and around the world, and they'll tell those who listen to them that if they just try Jesus, if they accept Christ, if they add that to their life, everything is going to get better, everything is going to go great.
01:43
That their pain will end, that their wallets will get fat, that their waists will get thin.
01:49
This kind of teaching has filled pulpits, it's filled the airwaves, it's on TV, it's all around the world.
01:57
And the sad thing is in the poorest of the poor nations, these people have gone in and bilked those who have nothing for everything that they do have for the sake of lining their pockets.
02:08
And it's a shame.
02:09
But we know this, the scripture very clearly does not promise us as believers that everything in this life will be easy.
02:17
We don't have a promise that it will be painless, or that even things will be good by our standards.
02:22
How simple is it to refute this kind of teaching? Take a look at the apostles of Jesus Christ.
02:27
What kind of lives did they lead? These were the men who walked with our Savior while he was on earth.
02:33
Was everything great for them? These men were in prison, they were beaten, they were killed for the sake of the gospel.
02:40
Think about Stephen in Acts chapter 7, our pastor just preached on this a few weeks ago.
02:45
And how he faced death for the sake of the gospel.
02:50
Yet, in spite of the great danger he faced, he gave a glorious defense for the gospel.
02:58
So the question is, how do we as believers do the same thing? How can we stand in the face of trials and persecution and suffering? How can we engage a world that we know will revile us, will lie about us, will hate us when we obey God's commands and proclaim the gospel? And so that's what I want to look at this text this morning, because I believe it gives us the answer.
03:21
We're going to go through the text verse by verse, and then we'll make some points of application at the end.
03:26
Starting in verse 13, he opens with something of a rhetorical question.
03:30
He says, who is there to harm you if you're zealous for what is good? Seems like a pretty simple question.
03:36
But really, it's a little more difficult than it might seem.
03:39
As a principle, it's generally true that people who are doing good things, who are helping others, who are behaving in what we would call a good way, there aren't a lot of people who are lying enough to hurt those people.
03:52
Even a godless society will generally be kind to those who are good people.
04:00
But the reality is we know that we can look around, and that's not always the case.
04:05
See, it's a principle, but it's not universally true.
04:08
Because there are people who line up to hurt good people at times.
04:13
There are countless examples we could think of.
04:15
One that comes to my mind is the pastor Saeed Abedini.
04:18
Maybe you've heard of him in the news.
04:20
He was a Muslim convert to Christianity.
04:23
In Iran, he went around preaching and teaching and starting house churches.
04:27
From the accounts I've read, he started over 100 house churches.
04:30
And he came to the states and was a citizen here.
04:33
He went back, and back in 2010, he was working in Iran to build an orphanage.
04:38
That seems like a pretty good thing that I think almost everybody would support, a home for orphans.
04:45
But good things didn't happen to him.
04:47
He did endure suffering.
04:48
He was arrested by the Iranian authorities in 2012.
04:52
And he sits today in a prison in Iran, separated from his wife and children.
04:59
So we know that when we stand up and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will suffer.
05:06
There are times when we will be punished for that by this world.
05:11
So this verse can't simply mean that as long as we do good things, nothing bad will happen to us.
05:16
That can't be the case.
05:18
So what does it mean? Well, as he transitions to verse 14, he continues this thought and explains the context.
05:24
He says that even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.
05:31
So what Peter is teaching is not that there will be no suffering, but something much deeper and much more important than that.
05:36
That even if we do suffer as believers, it's a blessing.
05:42
Now this is one part of the Bible that it seems that in American Christianity, we've totally forgotten.
05:47
We look at people who are suffering and we think, well, maybe there's some unconfessed sin in their lives.
05:53
Maybe they did something to deserve this.
05:56
Maybe it's just the way it is because the world is full of sin.
06:01
But much more than that, what does the text say? It says that it's a blessing from God to suffer for the sake of righteousness.
06:08
When could we be more like Christ than when we suffer for the sake of righteousness? Was that not the example that Christ set for us as he willingly went to the cross to suffer for our sake? Now clearly, we're not going around looking for trouble.
06:26
We're not trying to find ways that we can suffer and make ourselves out to be martyrs.
06:31
Christ didn't do that either.
06:32
He prayed to God earnestly seeking that there might be another way.
06:36
But ultimately, he submitted himself to the will of the Father and endured the suffering that was in order to make a way for us to be reconciled to God.
06:46
As believers, we have a great privilege to suffer for the sake of the gospel.
06:52
We are not called to lives of comfort and lives of ease.
06:55
Instead, we're called to lives that are lined with sacrifice and with suffering.
07:00
That's the truth of God's word.
07:02
I want you to think about a question.
07:05
How have you suffered for the sake of the gospel? Think about it.
07:13
How have you suffered in your life for the sake of righteousness, for the sake of the gospel? If your answer is clearly that you haven't at all, you need to consider yourself.
07:23
You need to consider your calling and election and make sure that you are in Christ.
07:27
True faith and true belief in God do not ever lead us to passivity.
07:32
They don't lead us to sit on the sidelines and watch while other people do the work of the ministry.
07:39
Peter can call us to suffer for the sake of righteousness because he knows it is a blessing from God.
07:45
And he knows that ultimately we cannot be harmed.
07:49
We can be harmed temporarily in this life, but we can't be harmed.
07:52
Our hope is eternal and beyond this life.
07:55
And so as he continues the verse, he says, Do not fear their intimidation and do not be troubled.
08:01
This is the section of this passage that is the what not to do.
08:05
What shouldn't we do? We shouldn't fear their intimidation and be troubled.
08:10
That passage, do not fear their intimidation, literally is translated, do not fear their fear.
08:16
Or don't fear the things they fear.
08:18
So who is the they he's referring to? Well, it's the rest of the world.
08:22
It's unbelievers.
08:24
Why should we as Christians who've been freed from the bondage of sin and given an eternal hope of glory with Christ be concerned and fear the same things that the world fears? Why would we use our energy to concern ourselves with those things when we've been freed? Why would we take that anxiety that the world struggles with about what's going to happen and hang that millstone back around our neck? Our hope is not in this world.
08:52
Our hope is not in our jobs.
08:54
Our hope is not in our homes.
08:56
It's not in our families.
08:57
It's not in your children.
08:59
It's not in your spouse.
09:00
Even the hope we have as believers is in Christ alone.
09:06
It's an eternal hope that cannot be taken from us, regardless of what circumstances we might face.
09:12
And so in this life, we have no reason to fear.
09:18
This portion of the text is an allusion to a passage in Isaiah chapter eight.
09:22
And you don't have to turn there because it's almost word for word.
09:25
A quotation, Isaiah 8, 12 and 13 is a passage where God is calling his people to be set apart from the rest of the world, the other peoples.
09:33
And he tells them, do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.
09:36
But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy.
09:40
Let him be your fear and let him be your dread.
09:44
And so again, the point is this.
09:47
We don't have to fear what the world fears.
09:50
We have been made free from those things.
09:58
We have no need to fear this world and its troubles.
10:00
Yet what is the most common thing we hear when we bring up the point of evangelism? When you talk to a believer about evangelism, what's the most frequent thing they say? Well, I'm afraid.
10:12
I'm not sure I can do it.
10:14
I'm afraid I won't have the right words to say.
10:16
I'm afraid of what people will think.
10:18
And even if we don't voice those concerns, we have them in our hearts.
10:22
I know because I've had those concerns in my heart.
10:36
Our fear, when we allow it to stop us from speaking the gospel to those who are lost and dying, is sin.
10:46
It's that simple.
10:47
To those who know what to do and don't do it, it's sin.
10:53
And so Peter gives us the solution.
10:55
And this, I believe, is the crux of this passage, the next portion of this verse.
11:00
He says, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
11:06
You see, this is the key to understanding how we can suffer and endure suffering while proclaiming the gospel.
11:13
We do it by sanctifying Christ as Lord in our hearts.
11:16
It would be impossible for me to overstate the importance of this verse.
11:21
Not only in this passage, but in our entire series on evangelism.
11:25
Everything we've been working on teaching.
11:28
I believe this is the key.
11:30
We do not share the gospel because we have not sanctified Christ as Lord in our hearts.
11:36
But we must.
11:38
He must become the most important thing in our hearts and in our lives.
11:43
Pastor Jeff Durbin is one of the pastors who was preaching at the conference Keith was at earlier this week.
11:50
And he said that Jesus isn't asking for a part of your life.
11:53
He is commanding you to repent and believe.
11:56
And so when we take Christ from being something that we add on to our lives.
12:00
And instead we sanctify him as Lord in our hearts.
12:03
And he becomes our life.
12:06
Everything changes.
12:10
That's the truth.
12:11
If we have truly repented and believed.
12:14
We put Christ on the throne in our hearts and lives.
12:17
And our whole life changes.
12:18
The things that we want change.
12:20
The things that we do change.
12:22
We no longer live like the world.
12:24
And we should no longer look like the world around us.
12:26
Now you might be wondering.
12:28
What does it mean to sanctify Christ as Lord in my heart? Well the word that's translated here is sanctify.
12:34
Is the same Greek word that's translated in the model prayer as hallowed.
12:38
You remember when we pray the model prayer.
12:40
Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name.
12:43
It's the same word.
12:45
Our pastor preached through that prayer probably about a year ago now.
12:50
And did a great job of explaining that.
12:51
But let's refresh our memory.
12:54
Hallowed or sanctified are both ways of saying holy or set apart.
12:58
It means that we are to honor, to glorify, to exalt and lift up to the highest place.
13:04
Jesus Christ in our hearts.
13:05
In the ESV, our pew bibles, this verse is translated.
13:10
Honor Christ the Lord as holy.
13:13
We raise him to the highest position above everything else.
13:16
He becomes our number one priority.
13:19
And we begin to ask ourselves.
13:20
How can I glorify and exalt Jesus Christ with my life? With my words? With my job? With my family? With my friends? With my house? With everything and anything that he brings into my path.
13:33
How can I glorify him? You see, it's a fundamental shift.
13:38
No longer are we trying to force ourselves to do something we're afraid to do.
13:42
Because when Christ is Lord of our hearts and our lives, we willingly go.
13:47
It's all we can do.
13:49
Because we made him the most important thing.
13:55
A call to Christ is a call to die.
13:58
Scripture is full of metaphors that explain this.
14:01
We read in various passages that we're to take up our cross and follow him.
14:05
We read that we're to die to ourself.
14:07
That we're to put to death the flesh and sin.
14:10
When we come to God, when we come to Christ, by God's grace, we cast off our sinful desires.
14:16
And he replaces them with a heart that beats to serve him.
14:21
That's how we sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts.
14:24
I'm not telling you that this is a call to some kind of radical or extreme Christianity.
14:29
This is basic faith in Jesus Christ.
14:32
This is the entryway.
14:35
It all starts with making Christ the Lord of your life.
14:40
This is not something that comes at a later moment.
14:44
This is what happens when the Holy Spirit regenerates us.
14:48
And we pass from death unto life.
14:54
And so once we've established that, then we can look to see what's next.
14:58
And this is where evangelism begins.
15:00
Because now we have something to tell people about.
15:03
Something has happened in our hearts and in our lives.
15:05
And so look at verse 15.
15:07
He moves into talking about making a defense.
15:11
He says that we are always to be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you.
15:19
I'm not sure what happened there.
15:25
Making a defense is the natural result to the believer who has sanctified Christ as Lord.
15:31
They become instantly ready to make a defense.
15:33
Now we've heard much preaching on this passage.
15:37
And it usually centers around this verse.
15:39
Because where he says to make a defense here, that's the term where we get apologetics from.
15:45
And we had Dr.
15:47
James White here on Wednesday, a noted apologist who does a great work.
15:51
But know this.
15:53
Apologist is not some special position that the rest of the world doesn't fill.
15:57
Every believer in Christ is an apologist.
16:00
We all are to stand ready to make a defense for our faith.
16:04
It's not just preachers or teachers or believers who have outgoing personalities.
16:09
We all have different gifts, but we all have the same hope that is within us.
16:13
If you are in Christ, your hope is in Him, and you can tell others about that.
16:18
It's that simple.
16:22
Our testimony should be a reasoned and reasonable defense.
16:26
Not just a story based on emotion.
16:28
It's not only about how we felt.
16:31
We won't convince anyone to become a Christian simply by logic.
16:35
But that doesn't mean that our thoughts about God shouldn't be shaped by the logic that He created us to know and understand.
16:42
We use our logic and reason.
16:45
But at the heart of our testimony is our story.
16:48
It's personal.
16:50
But despite the fact that it's personal, there are themes and things that are common to all of us as believers.
16:56
Because there's really only one gospel, right? We all realized at some point, by God's grace, that we were sinners.
17:04
And that we had sinned against a holy God.
17:07
And that the judgment for that sin would be eternal punishment.
17:13
We all realized that we needed salvation.
17:18
But we had no way to earn it.
17:20
There was nothing good in us.
17:21
Nothing we could do.
17:24
And by God's grace and His drawing us to us, He made us able to place our faith in Him and repent of our sins.
17:30
Turn away from our sins and live a life that is different.
17:34
Think back to when you were saved.
17:36
For some of you, it might have been recently.
17:38
For some of us, it was 15 or 20 years.
17:41
For some of you in this room, it could have been 30 or 40 years ago or more.
17:44
But think back to that time.
17:47
Think of the hope that you have and when it began.
17:51
These are things that we need to remember and remind ourselves of.
17:54
That story is one that you should be always ready to share at any time.
17:58
You know, I'm a father.
17:59
I have two children.
18:01
And if you didn't know me, and we talked for...
18:05
We had a couple of opportunities to talk with one another.
18:08
A couple of hours over some time.
18:10
And then suddenly, later on, you found out that I had kids.
18:13
You would think it was strange that I hadn't mentioned that sooner, right? Part of being a father, that defines who I am.
18:20
My children and my family, to some extent, define who I am.
18:24
Nobody has to ask me to bring up my children.
18:26
Because they're special to me.
18:28
They're precious to me.
18:29
My wife.
18:30
Nobody has to ask me to tell them I'm married.
18:33
I have a wonderful wife who I love.
18:34
I bring that up in conversation.
18:37
So if the God of the universe has saved us from our sins, and redefined who we are, taking us from being dead in our sins, to being alive in Christ, shouldn't that just naturally come out of us in our conversation? In our conduct? It doesn't have to be contrived or forced.
18:57
If we've been changed by grace, it comes from us.
19:06
There are no believers without a testimony.
19:10
It's not possible.
19:12
I'm not telling you that you need to remember the exact minute, hour, day.
19:16
I've heard preachers preach that.
19:18
I've heard people say terrible things like, if you're 99% sure you're 100% lost.
19:23
I'm not saying that.
19:24
I'm not saying you need to know where you were, what color tie you were wearing, which socks you had on.
19:29
But you should know when God, by grace, changed your life.
19:36
Made you alive in Him.
19:37
And you should be willing to share that with anybody who will listen.
19:42
And so while Peter does call us to boldly present our testimony in the gospel to all people, there are some conditions that he places on this witness.
19:50
As he moves forward in the verse, he says that we should always do it with gentleness and reverence.
19:57
Now, there are a million ways for us to get this wrong.
20:02
And unfortunately, far too often, we do and others have.
20:05
Other people who bear the name Christian have done a terrible job of this.
20:10
But I want you to know that the way we approach people with the gospel is important.
20:14
The gospel is hugely and vastly important.
20:19
We're not recounting a story from our childhood.
20:22
It's much more important than that.
20:27
Peter calls us to be gentle, or another way to say that is to be meek.
20:33
Those who are in need of the gospel are people who are hurting.
20:36
They're suffering.
20:38
They're suffering from the consequences of their own sins.
20:40
They're suffering from the pains of this fallen world that we all experience together.
20:44
Even those people who might appear to have it all together, they're suffering.
20:48
And apart from Christ, they have no hope.
20:52
The last thing they need is us to come to them with the Bible like a tire iron and club them against the forehead with it.
20:59
That doesn't mean we don't proclaim the scripture to them boldly, but it means we do it with gentleness and reverence.
21:09
It means that we preach the gospel with love and concern for the souls of those who are lost and dying, not as self-righteous and arrogant loudmouths who would rather win an argument than win someone to Christ.
21:20
The gospel is not a sledgehammer smashing the heads of the lost.
21:24
It's like a surgeon's scalpel.
21:26
It cuts to the core of the problem and leads them to health and healing, spiritual healing for those who are dying from the disease of sin.
21:33
And so the words of life, the gospel of Jesus Christ, doesn't bash people down, although it does break them down.
21:45
When the Holy Spirit awakens their heart and makes them alive and they see their need for a Savior, that's not something that just happens by brute force.
21:55
You can't beat someone into submission to Christ.
21:59
Peter says that we are to do so with reverence.
22:02
The word reverence is frequently translated throughout the Bible as fear.
22:07
Now this isn't a fear of man, we've already talked about that, or a fear of how things are going to turn out, but rather a holy and reverential fear of God.
22:15
We have to realize the importance and the value of the gospel and treat it with the care and respect appropriate to the most important life-giving message that anyone can ever hear.
22:27
It's a message without equal.
22:29
It's the very words of life.
22:32
It's the good news for a world filled with urgent spiritual and physical needs.
22:37
It's the message that not only our communities but the nations must hear.
22:42
And any one of us who are entrusted with carrying such a message should be capable and prepared.
22:48
We have to study God's word and meditate upon it and know it.
22:53
Our testimony is the story of how we came to Christ, but it doesn't stop there.
22:57
God's word gives us the foundational knowledge of how Christ came to us to do what we could not do.
23:04
And it's a message that we give freely to all in its pure form.
23:10
It's from those of us who've been made alive.
23:12
It's from people who were once dead in their trespasses and sins to people who are dead.
23:18
We've frequently heard it described as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.
23:23
We don't have anything to boast in because we have the gospel.
23:26
There should be no pride in us.
23:29
We don't say, well, you should do what I did.
23:32
Look at me, I made the right choice.
23:34
That's not how this works.
23:40
Peter gives us a final instruction concerning evangelism.
23:44
He says that we are to keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.
23:53
So in addition to our testimony and the truth of God's word, our lives should give credence to the gospel that we proclaim.
24:00
Our conscience should be pure.
24:03
Our lives should be free from unrepentant sin.
24:05
We cannot live as believers constantly indulging ourselves in sin.
24:11
Spurgeon made a great quote on this.
24:13
He said you must either give up your sins or give up all hope of heaven.
24:17
To live in a way that contradicts what we may tell someone about Christ is hypocrisy.
24:23
We're not perfect.
24:25
I'm not preaching perfection here.
24:27
We will not be perfect until we're joined with Christ finally and eternally.
24:32
But as believers, we can't live in habitual and unrepentant sin.
24:36
The pattern of our life cannot be one that is marked by sin.
24:39
We fall and we return to Christ in repentance and faith, and he picks us back up again.
24:49
We've been set free by Christ.
24:52
It's time for us now to use our freedom not for evil but for good.
24:56
Because we've been made free to proclaim the gospel, when our good conduct and our conversation is joined with the good news, we deliver to lost and dying people an authentic message to those who are in desperate need of hope.
25:09
And when the world tries to discredit our faith, they will be the ones who are put to shame if we're found to be blameless in our ways.
25:19
Ultimately, God will be exalted.
25:22
Every mouth that might revile us while we're on this earth proclaiming his gospel will eventually confess that he is Lord.
25:31
We have to remember in every moment of our lives that we are a walking and talking disciple of Christ, his representative on earth.
25:38
People will judge our God by how we obey him, whether that's fair or not.
25:43
That's just the reality.
25:46
And I'm not saying that God doesn't use sinful people because obviously all throughout the Bible, he used men and women who sinned.
25:54
We all sin.
25:56
But like I said before, we can't continue in sin and just make an excuse for it and say, well, God's okay with it.
26:01
I'm safe.
26:02
So I said, I prayed a prayer.
26:03
So how I live doesn't matter.
26:06
Your testimony and the words of the gospel need to line up with your life.
26:13
This reminds us that even if we're zealous for doing good, when we take the gospel to the nations, there will be many who slander and revile us.
26:20
They won't like what we teach.
26:23
This is clear in the world today.
26:25
We're labeled as being discriminatory, right? If we stand upon the truth of God's word these days, that means we hate people or we're discriminatory.
26:33
That's what we hear all the time.
26:35
Or they say that we're ignorant and uneducated.
26:40
This isn't going to stop.
26:42
Understand that.
26:45
Until Christ returns, the hate and revile and slander won't stop.
26:52
Peter teaches us that if we maintain a clear conscience, that ultimately the shame will fall upon those who oppose God.
26:58
This reminds me of the qualifications for elders that's listed in 1 Timothy.
27:02
One of the first ones that we hear is that an elder is to be above reproach.
27:05
Know this, those qualifications aren't just for elders.
27:08
They should be aspirations of every believer in Christ.
27:11
And if we're above reproach, what that means is that nothing sticks to us.
27:14
That they can't take an accusation and stick it to us and go, well, that guy, sure you say he's a believer, but this.
27:22
It doesn't mean we're perfect, but it means we live in a way that lends credence to the gospel that we proclaim.
27:30
And so Peter sums up in verse 17, giving us again an encouragement as to why we should be willing to suffer.
27:35
He says, for it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.
27:44
The best, safest place for any believer to be is in God's will.
27:49
We know that God is sovereign.
27:51
We know that he's working out his plan and his purposes in and through us.
27:55
And if God's will is that we should suffer for a time, then that's a good thing for us.
28:01
It's a blessing, not a curse.
28:03
It's far better for us to suffer according to God's will, especially for the sake of proclaiming the gospel, than to receive the natural suffering and punishment and pain that comes from being in sin.
28:15
And so, if you're living in sin, you don't get to claim this verse and say, well, it's better that I should suffer for doing what's right.
28:25
If you're not doing what's right, sorry, that doesn't apply.
28:28
But if you're living in a way that glorifies God, and your life is about proclaiming his gospel because you've sanctified him as Lord in your life, and suffering comes your way, know that God hasn't left you.
28:42
You're not cursed.
28:43
You're being blessed.
28:45
We know that the suffering and punishment that we endure is one of the ways that God grows us.
28:50
It's one of the ways he achieves sanctification in us.
28:53
We become more and more conformed to the image of Christ.
28:57
And as we become more like Christ and less like the world, how much more will they revile us? It only gets worse.
29:04
The closer we get to God, the more we see our own sin, and the more others take time to accuse us of it.
29:13
Christ said in Matthew 10, 24 and 25, that a disciple is not above his teacher, nor is a servant above his master.
29:20
It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master.
29:24
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household? So Christ was hated, persecuted, and reviled while he was on this earth, and we're his disciples.
29:36
Why would we think that as disciples of Christ we would escape suffering? The hatred and persecution from the world will only continue to increase, but we will press on by faith because we know that it is better for us to suffer according to God's will.
29:54
We cannot, we must not, we do not ever compromise our convictions in order to gain comfort or ease from the pressure of this world.
30:04
That's the first step down a path that leads to ruin.
30:08
Our lives as believers demand that we live in direct opposition to the wisdom of the world.
30:13
So we can't bow down when the world says that we're hateful and uneducated and ignorant and we need to think this way.
30:21
We stand firmly upon the convictions of God's word, and no matter what they throw at us, we endure it because we know that our hope is beyond this world.
30:32
This passage continues on to compare the life of Christ and how he suffered injustice on our behalf in order to make an atonement for our sins.
30:39
He is our glorious example, but we'll stop here today and look back at what we've discussed in order to make an application to our lives.
30:47
And so here's the question, how in light of this passage and what it means are we empowered to proclaim the gospel to the nations? The points of application all center around the key verse we looked at earlier.
31:01
In verse 15 we heard that exhortation, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, because that is the greatest and most important application from this text.
31:11
We must sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts.
31:14
He has to occupy the place of highest esteem.
31:20
You cannot go on calling yourself a Christian yet having other things occupy the place of greatest importance in your heart.
31:26
It's dishonest and it's a disservice to yourself and God.
31:30
So if there's something in your life that is more important to you than God's glory, you need to examine that right now because you have a choice to repent and place Christ at the top or to realize that you are not truly a follower of Christ.
31:51
If you consider your life today, think about what's most important to you.
31:55
If the answer's not clearly and absolutely Christ, then you need to repent and pray that God would remove the idols you've placed before Him in your heart.
32:03
When we place Christ above all else and when we sanctify Him as Lord in our hearts, I believe there are five things that will naturally follow from that, and they're on the back of your worship folder.
32:13
We'll go through them one by one, fill in the blanks.
32:17
First of all, when we sanctify Christ as Lord, we face our fears.
32:23
When we sanctify Christ as Lord, we face our fears.
32:30
Now, I don't mean by this that we just man up or get tough and deal with it.
32:34
That's not at all what I'm saying.
32:36
What I mean is what I've already said, that naturally, when we give Christ the place of highest exaltation in our lives and in our hearts, all of the other fears of man fall away.
32:47
We're free to proclaim the Gospel because we see the great need of sinners who are destined for eternal punishment in hell apart from Christ.
32:56
We stop worrying about whether we'll be socially accepted or liked or if we'll lose friends or if they won't like what we say or if we'll fumble the words.
33:05
When Christ is number one in our hearts, proclamation of the Gospel is the natural and necessary thing for us to do.
33:13
I'm not preaching to you guys today a burden of legalism.
33:16
This is where we've gotten it all wrong.
33:19
We've tried so hard to force ourselves to jump over the fear that we have.
33:24
We have programs for evangelism and those are good things.
33:28
They help us to know the words to say in situations where we encounter the lost.
33:33
But ultimately, if you don't put those to use, it's no good.
33:36
So many people have struggled because they're afraid.
33:39
They don't know what to do.
33:40
They're worried.
33:41
And we've just tried to say, well, how do I overcome my fears? And we've used the world's wisdom to do that.
33:46
Well, I'm telling you to throw out the wisdom of the world.
33:49
Sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart and you will cease to care about what people think.
34:03
Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 10 and verse 28.
34:06
He said, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
34:10
Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
34:14
You see, for us to fear man and not God is exactly opposite of what we should do as believers in Christ.
34:22
We've gotten it totally backwards.
34:26
But when we get it right, then we can stand and proclaim the gospel.
34:29
This is why Stephen could stand and proclaim the gospel while staring down death.
34:34
Because he had no fear that they could harm him.
34:37
They could kill his body, but they couldn't kill his soul.
34:41
Nothing's changed.
34:42
If you're in Christ, they can harm your body, but they can't harm your soul.
34:49
Number two, when we sanctify Christ as Lord, we proclaim a global gospel.
34:57
The gospel is for all people, regardless of race, age, gender, or any other thing you want to think of.
35:07
The gospel is for everyone.
35:09
It is the greatest need in the world.
35:10
People need to hear the gospel.
35:12
The world is dying to hear the gospel.
35:17
There are millions of people dying apart from Christ.
35:20
And we believe with all of our hearts that to die apart from Christ, they will suffer eternal punishment.
35:26
We believe that.
35:28
And so what should we do in response to that? Very clearly, we should take the gospel to everyone.
35:35
Another of the preachers at the conference this week said, God knows who He's going to save, but we don't, so we preach to all men.
35:41
Right? I don't know who God's going to save.
35:45
So I don't withhold the gospel from anyone.
35:48
I don't write off any group of people.
35:57
I want to share with you a few statistics that I gathered from the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
36:02
They have a research group that investigates unreached peoples around the world.
36:07
I just want to try and put these numbers in your head so you can see the actual need for the gospel that's in the world.
36:13
Because I think it's going to blow your mind.
36:16
According to the IMB, there are 11,495 people groups in the world.
36:21
Now a people group is the largest group of people which the gospel can pass through without a significant barrier to understanding or acceptance.
36:29
So in other words, a large group of people who speak one language and live in one roughly geographical area.
36:35
So there are 11,495 people groups in the world.
36:41
Of those, there are 6,821 who are unreached people groups.
36:46
That means among those people, less than 2% of their population are Evangelical Christians.
36:54
So over half of the world consists of unreached people groups.
37:01
Here's the sad news.
37:04
There are several hundred if not over 1,000 unreached people groups in the United States and Canada.
37:11
Right here.
37:13
We don't know the number accurately because the majority of the missions organizations focus on foreign work so that nobody's actually taking the time to do extensive enough research to say with certainty how many there are.
37:24
But I did read one missiologist and a researcher who estimated that there's between 368 and 641 people groups in the U.S.
37:33
and Canada who are unreached for the Gospel.
37:37
Now it might sound crazy to those of us who live down here in what's called the Bible Belt where there's a church on every corner.
37:45
But know this.
37:45
In the United States of America today in 2015 there are children born who live their whole lives and die without encountering the Gospel.
37:56
And here we sit in the walls of this church and we go out and we have nothing to say to them.
38:00
How can it be? How does that not change the way we live? Of the aforementioned 6,821 unreached people groups there are 3,232 that are classified as both unreached and unengaged.
38:23
That means that not only are there less than 2% of evangelical Christians in their population there's no coordinated strategy to reach those people.
38:31
Not 3,000 people.
38:33
3,000 people groups.
38:35
Some of these have well over 100,000 people in them.
38:45
365 of those groups have a population of over 100,000 people.
38:50
So just in those 365 groups there's at least 36 million people who have never heard the Gospel and there's no coordinated effort to take it to them.
39:03
That's the stark reality of evangelical Christianity in the world today.
39:09
And thank God that we have researchers and the internet and access to these things to know that no longer can we live here and ignore the fact that there's a world of people dying around us without the Gospel.
39:23
We have to do something.
39:24
If you're a believer in Christ that has to change your life.
39:35
Our lives should be centered around how we can take the Gospel to our neighbors and to the nations.
39:39
We need to be living in a way that allows us to give much from the excess of what we have been entrusted with in order to support the work of missionaries at home and abroad.
39:48
And we should be on the front lines of battle every day taking the Gospel to everyone who would hear.
39:54
And there's no longer an excuse for us that we can't do anything about it.
39:58
You don't have to go to a remote tribe in the Himalayan mountains that no one's ever been to before.
40:03
There are people in America who speak your language who haven't heard the Gospel.
40:10
We can do something about that.
40:13
If we sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts, we will do something about that.
40:18
It will stir us to action.
40:23
There are people right here in our hometown, in our small community, this neighborhood here on the north side of Jacksonville, in our city, the wider confines of Duval and Nassau County, and the other counties surrounding here, who desperately need to hear the Gospel.
40:39
And we have the words of life.
40:42
We need to take them.
40:49
Number three, when we sanctify Christ as Lord, we have a winsome witness.
40:57
I've already said this, but it bears repeating.
40:59
The Gospel is too important for us to mess up.
41:03
It requires us to spend time in study and preparation and in prayer, and it requires us to have a genuine concern for the lost.
41:12
We have the very words of life.
41:14
We should be able to give a genuinely appealing presentation of the Gospel.
41:19
This doesn't mean that we're salesmen, right? The Bible doesn't command us to go be door-to-door, rainbow-vacuum salespeople.
41:27
We don't shape or shift the message of the Gospel to make it more appealing to people.
41:32
That's the last thing we need to do.
41:34
But realize this, the message is good, right? It's the good news of the Gospel.
41:39
It's not a burden of rules for people to follow.
41:43
It's unlike every other religion in the world.
41:46
Only Christianity goes and tells people, you're lost, you're in sin, you've offended God, and you will suffer punishment, but the good news is, Christ has made a way for your salvation.
41:58
God came to us because we can't work our way to Him.
42:03
So this is a good message for people.
42:08
We don't need to be out looking to pick a fight with the Gospel.
42:10
So many times I see this, people get into arguments, and before long, it turns into a war of words, and nobody's heart's being won that way.
42:21
Si Tim Burgenkates, an apologist, he was also at the conference our pastor was at this week, he made a great quote, he said, you have to seek to win the person, not the argument.
42:31
Because if you're more concerned with winning an argument than winning someone's soul to Christ, you've missed the point entirely.
42:37
If you're more concerned with the political problem of Islam than the spiritual problem of a billion Muslims who are going to die and suffer in hell, apart from the Gospel, you've missed the point.
42:56
When our desire to proclaim the Gospel is born out of a love for the lost, and a desire for their salvation, it will shape the words we say.
43:04
But, when we try to evangelize out of a sense of guilt, or obligation, using some kind of rote, memorized method, it will be apparent to those who hear us.
43:15
It all goes back to verse 15.
43:18
Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
43:21
Because when we do that, our hearts change.
43:23
We have compassion for the lost.
43:26
Number four.
43:28
When we sanctify Christ as Lord, we live with a clear conscience.
43:34
Like I said before, I'm not preaching to you legalism.
43:37
I'm not telling you that you have to follow a set of rules and be perfect.
43:41
I'm just telling you that we need to put sin to death daily in our lives.
43:48
Because it's essential to our witness and to the Gospel that we take to people.
43:53
Those of us who are in Christ have been freed from sin and given the Holy Spirit to enable us to walk by faith.
43:58
And though we might fall, we return to Christ in repentance and trust that He is completing His work in us.
44:05
If there's habitual and unrepentant sin in your life, you have a much larger problem than evangelism right now.
44:13
And you need to consider that.
44:16
You need to seek God in repentance.
44:20
Seek that He would change your heart.
44:23
You cannot lead others to Christ if you don't truly know Him.
44:27
And so, if you're sitting here today and this all seems foreign, like I'm talking about something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to you, I want to encourage you this.
44:37
Hear the Gospel today.
44:39
That God created the universe and everything in it.
44:43
He created you and I and that all of us have sinned and fall short of His glory.
44:50
And that apart from Christ, we all stand to face judgment by God.
44:58
And that we can't pay the price for our sins on our own.
45:01
That there's no way we can make it right.
45:04
But God in grace and mercy sent His Son, Jesus Christ to pay the price for our sins.
45:11
And if you will repent of your sins and place your faith in Him for salvation, He will forgive you.
45:18
He will take away your sins and He will impart the righteousness of Christ to you.
45:23
And you can live a life that honors and glorifies Him.
45:28
That's the foundational first step.
45:31
So if nothing else you've heard today, hear that.
45:33
That's where it starts.
45:37
Number 5.
45:39
When we sanctify Christ as Lord, we do not compromise for comfort.
45:46
The great lie that's been told in American Christianity over the last 50 to 100 years is that we can live out the American dream while living for Christ.
45:58
We've been co-opted by the American dream to think that if we go to church on Sundays, have a successful business and 2.2 children and two nice cars and we don't hurt anybody and we treat people right with respect and kindness, that all is well in the world.
46:20
But that's not the version of Christianity that's in the Bible.
46:25
As believers, we're called to endure suffering and we're given an example in this by Christ.
46:30
He suffered for us while doing the Father's will and so will we if we do the Father's will.
46:36
But we can endure this suffering because we know that we have a greater hope.
46:41
We have a God who will eventually bring an end to all of the sin and the sickness and the pain that is in this world.
46:47
And for those of us who are in Christ, we will live with Him forever.
46:51
How great is our hope in Him that we can look beyond the temporary pains and afflictions of this world.
46:59
I know that there are many in this room who have endured incredible suffering and I don't want to make light of that.
47:05
I'm not saying that it's not that bad.
47:07
But what I am saying is that there's something so much better than this.
47:12
This life is such a short blink or vapor, as Scripture calls it, in comparison to eternity.
47:21
Because we know that suffering is indeed a blessing to us, as we've already learned, we don't shrink away from it or avoid it.
47:26
In fact, we willingly submit to it for the sake of our good and for God's glory.
47:31
We walk into the fray.
47:34
And because the Gospel is so important, we must stand firm in our convictions about God and His Word.
47:40
The time is rapidly coming in America, and in many cases it's already here, where people are going to suffer for their faith in a way that we haven't seen in a long, long time here.
47:51
Persecution is going to begin in earnest at some point in the future.
47:56
And in isolated cases, we already see it.
48:00
There's a fire chief in Atlanta who's unemployed, who can tell you what happens when you stand firm upon your convictions about God's Word.
48:07
And that's just one story among dozens of others.
48:12
But we cannot back away from the proclamation of the Gospel for the sake of comfort.
48:17
This is not our best life now.
48:18
This is a battleground.
48:21
There's a world of people out there who need the Gospel.
48:24
Whatever it costs us, we need to take it.
48:27
2 Corinthians 4 and verse 17 says, For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
48:37
There's nothing that compares to the glory of the Lord, and the joy we will have when we're with Him.
48:43
Our reward is in the age to come.
48:46
We live as believers now in the midst of the already and the not yet.
48:50
Because Christ, by His sacrifice at Calvary, initiated the age to come, the last days that we live in.
48:57
Yet we stand here still waiting for His triumphal return and His eternal reign, when we'll be joined with Him forever.
49:04
If we sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts, and keep the hope of what is to come, always before our eyes, we'll be transformed into people who are passionate about proclaiming the Gospel to all men.
49:18
We do not know who God will save, but He does.
49:22
And so we go from here, and we proclaim the Gospel to all, knowing and trusting that by His Spirit, He will draw those who are His sheep into the fold.
49:31
Let's pray.
49:37
God, we thank You for Your Word.
49:40
God, as believers, it's a comfort to us.
49:44
It's instruction to us.
49:47
We're so thankful for the words of life, the Gospel that You've given to us.
49:52
God, we thank You that for many of us, we can look back to a time where You made us alive in Christ, and that as we read, Father, that we've been crucified with Christ, and that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us.
50:11
Father, may the whole world see that as we take the Gospel outside of these doors, into the lost and dying world that waits to hear it, that is desperate to hear the Gospel.
50:23
Father, we ask that You would shape our hearts and change us, and by Your Spirit, that You would enable us to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts, that You would occupy the highest position, that everything else we do would be subordinate to the fact that we seek to glorify You in all things.
50:44
God, give us strength.
50:46
Give us true passion for the lost.
50:50
Give us the eyes of Christ to see those who are hurting and need to hear the Gospel.
50:58
Give us wisdom to speak words, the right words at the right time.
51:04
Give us fearlessness, because we know that there is nothing they can do to harm us.
51:09
In Christ's name I pray.
51:11
Amen.
51:13
We'll sing our closing song, and if you need prayer, please feel free to come forward.