WWUTT 825 Q&A Evangelism Online and Inviting Unbelievers to Church?

Just two questions for our podcast today, but they both have to do with evangelism. Can we evangelize online, and do we evangelize by inviting unbelievers to church?

The answers to these questions when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of Truth, so true worshipers will worship the

Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. Visit our website, www .utt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. That's a stylish sweatshirt that you have on there.

I know, pretty snazzy, huh? Yeah. We ordered some prototypes of the new what -wear.

That sounds weird. What will I wear today? Exactly.

Yes. Perfect choice. You can wear your what sweatshirt. That's right. For those of you who cannot make decisions,

I cannot talk, but we can't make a decision. When you have to ask that question first thing in the morning, you've just answered it.

That's right. Perfect. Well, we haven't taken pictures with our sweatshirts yet.

We ought to do that and get it on the Facebook page. We've done the t -shirts as well. So the sweatshirts are in white.

We also did white t -shirts, but we're thinking we're probably going to do the t -shirts in dark blue. Yeah. I don't really care for the white t -shirts.

Generally because white t -shirts are thinner material anyway. Exactly. And so you kind of have to wear something else underneath.

Yeah. So we're probably going to go with a darker color on the t -shirt, but I like the white hoodie. Me too.

It does come out looking good. It is. Runs a little bit on the large side. Becky looks like she's swimming in it, but she says she likes that.

I do. So she likes a larger, baggier sweatshirt. Well, it fits over my sweaters. Oh, well.

So right now it's perfect. It gives you an idea how cold -blooded my wife can be in the wintertime.

Oh, me? She is often freezing. She's one of those who will, you know, when we're sitting on the couch together and she puts her feet up under my leg and I have to jump up.

He jumps up. Whoa! Whoa! Too cold. I'm just trying to feel my toes again.

That's all. I felt them just fine. That's why I leapt up into the air.

So we'll have pictures of all of that posted. For sure, we're going to have the sweatshirts and the t -shirts at the

G3 conference, but we'll see about what we need to do to get them online. We're not going through one of those, what do you call them, like the cafe shops or something like that?

Yeah, cafe press. Right. Where that way you can kind of set up your own shop and people can buy that way. We're not doing that because we're trying to keep the cost of the printing down.

Yes. And most shirt companies don't print the way this one does, the one that we found.

Right. I don't think we can do that through cafe press. I don't know. The full color. It looks like the full color thing like you see on the opening slide in every one of our videos.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. That's what it looks like. Except I did have an eight -year -old looking at my shirt very intently asking me what each picture was about.

Right. It's an evangelism opportunity. It is. But it was a little awkward when she got to JL.

Oh, yeah. Slamming the tent peg. Yeah, she didn't understand what was going on.

So I just kind of skipped over that. Well, yeah, you got to explain that. Pointed over to Jonah. And this is David right here. You can ask your folks about that.

David carrying the head of Goliath on his shoulder. Yeah. And you said you wouldn't wear it.

And look at you. You've been wearing that sweatshirt since you got it. It's cozy.

It's so cozy. Well, you make it look good. Aw, thanks. How sweet. So we'll be looking for the new

What Wear. It's going to make its way on, I guess, Facebook or something. And we'll announce it somewhere. There will be somewhere that you can.

We're announcing it now. Yeah. Well, yeah. But you mean showing the pictures? Yeah, showing the pictures and having it on display.

Or just come to the G3 conference. Or that. In Atlanta in January. What, what, what? In four days, there will be a

G3 conference. Okay. Good to know. Three. Three days. Three days.

Three days. So it's Black Friday. Mm -hmm. Be sure to take advantage of a Black Friday special.

Yes. Even though the - Technically, right. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you can still get it for the lower rate, but then on Monday it goes up.

Right. Which is weird. That's Cyber Monday. You think they'd still have the deal on Cyber? Maybe they're planning on.

I shouldn't say that. Mm -hmm. Because then somebody's going to procrastinate. Yeah. Don't procrastinate.

Don't procrastinate. You need to register. Go to the letter G, the number three conference .com, g3conference .com.

If you're planning on attending this coming January, missions is the theme of the conference this year.

And by going to the website, you can find out all the speakers that they're going to have there as well. And of course, when we understand the text, we'll have our booth there.

Yeah. And so we're looking forward to - I'm very excited. Yeah. Looking forward to seeing you at the conference. About 5 ,000 people.

I think 4 ,000 to 5 ,000 is what they're expecting for the conference this time around. I have no idea. All I know is that they have

Chick -fil -A on hand. Of course. For like lunch, the lunch breaks, you've got

Chick -fil -A or pizza. Yeah. Not free, but yeah. Not free. Right. I'm sure they're going to have some other options as well, but those are the two that stick out in my mind because it's the two

I eat the most, Chick -fil -A or pizza. Right. Is there any other choice? Not for me.

You don't like having pizza as often as I want to eat pizza. Oh, no. After eight years of pizza almost every day and at least every week.

Almost every day. That's not true. Leftovers? Almost every week is accurate, but almost every day is not.

Yes. So how many weeks is that? How many pizzas? Hey, down at the pizza place, they know me.

We'll just put it - By name. We'll just leave it - And face. Oh my goodness. And face.

That was, wow. That was hilarious. They recognized him as soon as he walked in the door.

It's great. I walk in there, the whole kitchen goes, Gabe. It's like, you know,

Norm on Cheers. Yes. Whenever Norm came in, everybody goes, Norm. See, I'm that known at the pizza place.

That is pretty normal. Norm was an alcoholic, so that was a serious problem, but me, I'm just eating pizza.

Yep. For your family. Bring it home. I bring it home. I share the wealth.

Wealth. All right. Okay, anyway. So it's Friday. We're taking questions from listeners, which you can email to us at whenweunderstandthetextatgmail .com.

This first question has to do with a topic that we talked about last week. This is from Daniel. Good morning,

Pastor Gabe and Becky. Thanks for your reply to my last email, and thanks for your continued faithfulness to preaching the gospel of Christ.

I was just listening to your Q &A in which you address the issue with church home and recommended that Christians avoid it entirely.

Okay. You remember this now? Yeah. That looks really weird in print. Sorry. Keep going.

She didn't see the name last week when we were talking about it. No, I didn't. That's funny. Yeah. This is

Judah Smith's church up in Washington. Okay. Right. Washington State, and it's called Church Home was what he said.

Right. But the way it's spelled is Church Home. Yes. And now you can see why I was making fun of it, because when

Becky's looking at the word, it does look funky. It's like Church Home. Boy.

Yeah. Anyway. Anyway. So, I recommend that Christians avoid it entirely.

Permit me one geeky electronic joke. Church Home, O -H -M, you know, the measure of resistance.

Oh, yeah. He said, but I had a thought. Since the app includes a lobby feature where we can meet other attendees, maybe this app could be an excellent evangelistic opportunity.

Through the lobby feature in this app, maybe we could reach unconverted people who might be lost in that liberal movement.

Just something that occurred to me as I was listening. Thanks again for all that you do. If you want to take it upon yourself to do that, that's up to you.

I would just say be very careful in doing that. That's what I was going to suggest. I have not encountered very many situations where you have a chance to convert somebody online.

That usually doesn't go that way. Not as easily as, well, easy. I mean, it's the work of the

Holy Spirit one way or the other. Amen. Whether you're doing it in person, face -to -face, or whether you're exchanging a word online.

But just don't get on to cause trouble. Be patient and kind with the way that you respond to folks that are there, because they've obviously been drawn in by Judah Smith's pitch that this is a church.

This is church on your phone. That's the way this was pitched. So when I said avoid it entirely, that's what

I meant. Do not think of this as church, because it's not. And this is one of the tags that you have at the end of our programs regularly is saying, hey, we thank you for listening to when we understand the text, but this is not your church.

Right, exactly. We encourage you to find a church family that you can grow with, but thank you for including us as part of your

Bible study. Now Judah Smith is throwing this app out there as their new church plant.

That's the way that he presented it, with people asking, when are you going to come plant a church here or there or wherever?

And he says, well, now we have it's on your phone and you can go to church on your phone. We even have the church lobby right there on your phone, which, by the way, actually has an ecclesiastical name.

It's the vestibule. Oh, nobody calls it a vestibule anymore.

They say lobby, right? As though we're going to a hotel. Right. But yeah, it's the vestibule.

Try putting that on your app, though, and having that be seeker friendly. Yeah, not so much. So, again, yeah, if Daniel, if you feel so inclined to pull up the app and maybe draw someone's attention to the fact that what

Judah Smith is teaching is not the gospel or it's certainly not doctrinally sound, maybe you can throw in some what videos to some folks that you are interacting with.

I would say, you know, go with God. Godspeed to you as you do that.

It's not really a venture that I'm going to enter into, nor would I really encourage anybody to do that.

But I think that you have a good heart in wanting to warn people about the fact that this isn't actually church.

Right. And I would be cautious of using sarcasm in the words because they can't see your face.

They can't hear your tone of voice. They're just kind of going off of what they hear in their own head.

So whatever you say can be totally misread. Yes, literally. And and so I would be definitely cautious about how you word things.

And there's no sarcasm in any what videos. So you are you're safe in using those videos to help to reach somebody.

Right. Tongue planted firmly in cheek. It's not really sarcasm. It's snark.

Yes. Snark is a word. There's kind of an air of snark there. Hey, you know, Todd Freel and I, there's a reason why we get along.

But they can hear your voice in the videos. That's the difference. That's true. So you don't quite get the tone in exchanging messages by social media.

Exactly. Yeah. So anyway, that's that's my, you know, go get them speech.

Right. So if you want to. Now, I primarily have a medium like Twitter or, you know, we have the what

Facebook page. These things we use for evangelism purposes. So I understand,

Daniel, using the church home app to evangelize and warn people about this pitch that Judah Smith is making.

It's basically a big pitch for his church, just attracting people, attracting attention to church home.

Right. But one one thing I would caution you on. And this is not necessarily to you, Daniel.

In particular, this is kind of a general caution. We had an individual in our church once who had this idea in his mind that God was calling him to online evangelism.

Right. And so he was meant to evangelize to people on the Internet. What that eventually ended up doing was it pulled him away from his church family.

It did. He decided that we were all expendable and and treated us very poorly.

Yeah. And any discipline that we tried to do was not received. He even ended up trying to start his own church.

And so when you get into this mindfulness of the, you know, online evangelism kind of a thing, that's fine.

I think we can use social media for that. And I think we would be missing a great opportunity to share the gospel with people if we were not evangelizing through social media.

So many people are online and a lot of them, this is the way they interact with the world. You can't get an honest discussion with somebody.

Anywhere other than the Internet, it seems like. But just be careful that you're not in this idea of thinking that this is where evangelism, my evangelism ministry needs to be, because you ended up you end up quite disconnected.

There's a difference between reaching out to people who are disconnected and then you disconnecting yourself.

Right. Keep both feet firmly in your physical church. Absolutely. I would say that any thing that you do online needs to be as much under the guidance of your church as anything else that you do.

Oh, yeah, definitely. We had a situation that happened a few years ago where there was an individual that I confronted about things that he was saying on the

Internet. It was actually two guys, two guys who were saying certain things on the Internet that were very slanderous regarding certain opinions that other members of our church had.

Right. And so I had to go to him and say, have you been talking to those people about this? Because what you're saying on the

Internet, you're slandering them, especially if you've not actually gone to them face to face and had conversations about these opinions, which you're now sharing with everybody else.

What they ended up doing was leaving our church and telling everyone that we were spying on them and stalking them on the

Internet. Right. And watching everything that they were saying. Yeah. And they were they were arguing for this as though that what they were doing on the

Internet was nobody's business, but theirs. It's not my pastor's business to know what it is that I'm saying on Facebook, but it really is.

It is. We are as accountable to one another with the things that we say online as we would be any other word that comes out of our mouths.

When Jesus said in Matthew 12, 36, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.

That's not just about the words that come out of your mouth. It's also what you're typing on your keyboard. Yeah. So you be very careful with that.

When we talk about taming the tongue, like the instruction that we have in the book of James, that matters as much with the stuff that you say online as it does with the things that you say out loud.

So just be aware that you have a God who is sovereign in heaven, who is watching over you and that everything that you say and do is taken captive and made obedient to Christ.

That's right. And again, Daniel, that wasn't directed exactly at you. That was just a general warning.

Yeah, I agree. I think a good thing for all of us to be reminded of every once in a while, our attitudes online and the way that we talk to people, interact with on the

Internet is just as important as the way that we talk to people one on one, face to face.

Oh, yeah. And especially like people who you interact with on a daily basis around like your home, inside your home.

You don't think about how rude you're being to your children. I can speak more sternly to my kids and nicer to my neighbor.

Yeah. Whereas you go to church and you're like, hi, everybody, you know, and it's like nothing ever happened at home, you know.

So every word, every word mumbled, every word in that overflows from your heart, whether it's typed or said, is is very vital.

And in the right attitude, in the right state of your heart, in the ways that you say those things, not selfishly, but selflessly.

Right. With the other person in mind, considering their needs ahead of your own. And unfortunately, I have to have mine said after coffee.

Some days. You need your coffee first so that your heart will be in the right place. Yes. Yeah, I might be a little addicted.

Thank you again for your question, Daniel. This next one comes from Craig. He says, Dear Pastor, I very much appreciate your podcast.

Thank you for keeping with the truth of God. I wanted to understand your what video.

Hey, he wants to understand the video. I want to understand your what video regarding inviting unbelievers into the church.

This is a subject that I am researching. And because you stand behind Dr. John MacArthur and Todd Freel from Wretched, I was wondering what your thoughts on this response to the same question would be versus what you said in your what video.

So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to play the video first. The video that I did on inviting unbelievers into the church.

And then we're going to play the video where John MacArthur was asked this question. R .C. Sproul is with him.

So you'll hear Sproul come in as well. OK. And how they responded to this same subject.

All right. So first, here's the what video. Should we invite unbelievers to church?

Sure. Why not? Church should be a place where anyone who comes through the doors will hear the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed.

The wages of sin is death, the scripture says. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

Lord. May this message be preached from every pulpit. But we need to understand unbelievers are not part of the church.

In Romans 8, 9, Paul said, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

The church is the body of Christ. Whoever is not of Christ is not part of his body. Don't let an unbeliever get comfortable.

They need to be convicted. Though they're in the doors, they're still outside the church until they repent of their sin and are reconciled to God in Christ Jesus.

And don't use gimmicks to get them there. What you win them with is what you win them to. Not one soul has ever come to Christ through pop music or door prizes.

Give them the word of God. What's more important than inviting unbelievers is going to unbelievers.

This is evangelism. How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news?

Because faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So, yes, invite your unbelieving friend to church and take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the rest of the unbelieving world.

When we understand the text. Okay. All right. Is that clear?

Sure. Now with every what video, there's always kind of a backstory behind it. Okay.

Like there's something that's going on usually in our church that leads to the creation of a particular video.

Right. At this time, there was a rumor that was circulating that I said no unbelievers should ever be in the church.

It was something to that effect. It was, yeah, it was pretty harsh. It was taken to the extreme. Like I said, don't ever let a non -Christian in church or something like that.

They're not allowed in church. Yeah. And it had, it led to some people coming and sitting down with me and saying, did you say that unbelievers can't be in the church?

And, and I said, can you explain to me where you heard that from? Right. And they never could say, so they're just responding to rumors.

They couldn't even quote it exactly what it was that they heard. Now, my guess, my guess is that it came from the article that I wrote on John Pavlovitz and in the article,

I said, here's a couple of paragraphs from that article. The church is not just a bunch of people getting together and loving each other despite their sin or their differences.

What is the church? If you said it is the body of Christ, congratulations, you get a gold star.

So who gets to be in the body of Christ? According to scripture, those whom

Christ has reconciled to God, by his death, those who have been predestined for adoption into the family of God, those who are being shaped into the image of the son.

In other words, the body of Christ is made up of those who are followers of Christ only following Jesus doesn't mean you simply believe he exists or that he's the son of God.

Even the demons believe that it means that because you've been saved by his finished work, you obey his commands.

Those who do not obey him do not get to share in his life, but remain under the wrath of God.

That's John 3 36, which I read from just this past week in our study of the gospel of John.

So I was assuming that because of that article, there were some people that were now talking about how do you hear that?

Gabe said that unbelievers can't be in church. Well, that's not what I said. I just said that the only people who are the church are the followers of Christ.

Nobody else is the church, right? If you have an unbeliever that comes through the doors, they're in your church, but they're not part of the church.

Exactly. And they should not feel like they're part of your church. They should feel uncomfortable there so that they realize

I'm not part of this body. I'm not, I don't understand what they're doing. I don't know what they're talking about.

I don't understand why it's important to these people. So that they would be convicted over their sin and they realize

I'm outside of this kingdom that they're talking about, right? And they would repent of their sin and follow

Jesus Christ. And so come to believe the gospel and be saved. That is the way that we should minister to any unbelievers in our church, not making it comfortable for them to be there, right?

Because if they're comfortable in their sin, they're not going to repent from it. Exactly. Come to Christ. And the apostle

Paul said in first Corinthians chapters five and six, that we are to purge the evil person from among us.

And this is specifically, he's talking about those who call themselves brother, but they are walking in unrepentant sin.

Right. Now an unbeliever that comes in is not going to call himself brother.

And if he's mistakenly led to believe that he is a brother, he should be corrected on that. No, you're not.

You're not part of this brotherhood until you have repented of your sin and become a follower of Christ.

Then your brother will jump in the baptismal with you and, you know, take care of all of that. And you can come to the

Lord's table and partake in the bread and the cup with us. And then you are part of this family. You are part of this fellowship.

But until that, you do not have the right to call yourself brother for you're still outside this body.

Now, like I said in that video, you can invite your unbelieving friend and notice that I did qualify that as bring your unbelieving friend to church.

Not do a whole big thing where you're inviting a whole bunch of unbelievers to come to church. I am not for that.

That sort of outreach. How are you going to reach out to him later? You can't. You don't have any contact with them.

You know, if you invite like a whole ton of people. Well, generally speaking, yeah, I'm right.

And I know how an attractional church person is going to respond to that. They're going to say, no, we had everybody fill out the membership card or the visitor card.

Yes. So they can close the door in your face and not answer emails or phone calls as soon as you start making it difficult on them.

They go, whoa, whoa. I thought you said, come as you are. Right. And suddenly you're making me feel kind of awkward here.

But yeah, that's not the way that we do our evangelism outreach.

Evangelism happens outside of the church. It's not invite as many unbelievers as possible.

There's this thing. Ed Young Jr. Does it where he says, here's what the church should be made of. A third mature people, a third immature people and a third unbelievers.

No. What? Because none of those unbelievers are part of your church. Right. They're not the church.

They don't qualify. So evangelism happens. Should not be members. Right. But if you have a situation where you're trying to share the gospel with a friend and you're stuck, it's like he's asking questions

I don't know how to answer. My pastor would know this a lot better than I do, or, or so -and -so that goes to my church would know this, then,

Hey, bring them to church. Right. And hopefully what they're hearing preached from the pulpit is the gospel.

And something that is said is going to make more sense to them. And then there's time for interaction one -on -one at the end of church.

So they can ask the specific questions that they need to ask and have them answered and somebody can very directly try to convict them of their sin.

You know, have you done this? Have you lived this way? Do you understand that the Bible says that you have fallen short of God's glory and you are under God's judgment unless you repent and put your faith in Jesus and by faith, your sins are atoned for, and you have become a son or a daughter of God, you've been adopted into his family.

Uh, we, I just preached to the church. I was going to say, we preached to the church. No, Becky didn't do that. She was sitting with the kids.

But I, uh, I preached at a church where there were three men in the back and they were there helping out a rancher.

So a guy who had a ranch driving cattle, that's what they were there. They were from a different state, but they were, they had been there for several weeks helping drive cattle and work on the farm.

That's what they were doing. So part of the requirement of them being there and working with this rancher was they had to go to church with him.

Oh, that's awesome. And these three guys were, they were not Christians. They weren't saved. One of them,

I talked with one of them at the, at the end of service. And he said that he grew up in church, but it never, you know, it was just kind of the thing that they did.

I think what you were saying, I know plenty of people who grew up in church, but weren't saved until later on in life.

Yeah. Right. So same thing, same, same sort of thing. Right. So anyway, talking with him, he said that he had a lot of questions and some of the things that I was saying in my sermon were exactly answering the questions that he had.

Oh, cool. And he said, this really brought a lot of clarity to me today. So I really appreciate that. The other two guys that were with him weren't as talkative.

I couldn't get as much out of them, but I hope that, you know, it's some, it's a situation like that.

Some unbelievers are there, but they're there to hear the gospel, right? They're not there with the feeling or the understanding that they're part of that church.

And, and those three guys that I talked to seem to understand that they're not part of the church and they need to turn from sin and hear the gospel.

They've heard that said the Holy spirit needs to just rent their heart in such a way where it, it will, it'll finally get in.

It'll finally sink in the understanding, all of this. I I'm a sinner and I need Christ. Right. And maybe it's one of those things where while they're in Kansas, they're not going to get it, but when they go back to their home state, suddenly it's all going to sink in and it's all going to start making sense.

And that's why you might invite an unbeliever to church. And again, I stated it in that video, your unbelieving friend, not doing some big outreach thing where you're trying to attract all these unbelievers to come into your church, depending on how your bylaws are written.

You might lose your church. If you do that. True. Bunch of unbelievers come in and go, who's running this show?

We are now, you know, that'd be scary. You gotta be careful with those kinds of things.

And some churches don't have bylaws. What do they do when it's a nonprofit and a bunch of people come in and go, oh, aren't we just as much members here as anybody else?

Oh, what's your requirement for this? Interesting. We're we're, we're here. Here we are. I'd be messy.

Let's start making some changes. That'd be very messy. Could be. Anyway. Uh, so that's, uh, that was why that video was done the way that it was done.

It was kind of answering the charge of, well, Gabe said not to invite unbelievers to church.

I never said that. We're not screening people at the door. Oh, he had no joke. When somebody comes to hang on.

Are you a Christian? Right. Well, we ask a ton of questions with new people just to get to know them, but we don't really,

Hey, are you a Christian? You know, you can't come through. Yeah. Especially with how transient our church is.

Oh yeah. You can't do that with Fort Riley right next door. As much to know the people. Yeah. As much turnover as we experience in our town, it changes next week.

You know, we've got two or three families. Don't talk about it. Nope. What they're leaving.

And I don't want to talk about, I wasn't even talking about, I was just saying we've got two or three families are going to pop up next week. We've never seen before.

That's what I was going to say. Okay. I don't want to focus on the bad. I wasn't going to say anything about these two or three families who are leaving next month.

It's different when I say it than when you say it. Cause now I'm tearing up. Stop. And it never sinks in with me until we're actually there that morning and going,

Oh no, we're saying goodbye today. Yep. Oh, and that's what next week that it starts. Is that right?

Well, December. Yeah. December. I think we got three, three families we're saying goodbye to in December.

At least. Are you doing okay over there? Nope. Okay. So let's go, let's go to the next part of this question.

So, uh, hang on a second. I got to remember the name. Craig almost said Daniel. That was a previous question.

Yes. Craig sent me a link to a video with Dr. MacArthur answering this question and RC Sproul also responds to this.

So the first voice you're going to hear is the guy asking the question that Dr. MacArthur is going to reply. And then RC Sproul is going to break in and they're going to banter a little bit too.

All right. And so here's the same kind of a question about inviting unbelievers to churches presented to John MacArthur.

Dr. MacArthur, this is concerning something you said in your book, ashamed of the gospel.

You say that the church is for believers, not unbelievers. The early church gathered to edify slash grow and scattered to evangelize the world as such, should our services have any focus on unbelievers?

Well, I think it's, it's obvious that the church is the assembly of the redeemed for the purpose of worship.

And, uh, we come together, uh, to pray. We come together to worship.

We come together to, uh, and I think the highest form of worship is to submit to the authoritative word of God brought to bear upon our hearts by the gifted and prepared servant of the

Lord who preaches his word. Uh, I do believe that is the church's purpose. If you look at Hebrews chapter 10, it says, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is and much the more you see the day approaching in order that you might stimulate one another to love and good works.

It's a one another kind of experience. And in first Corinthians, um, 14, Paul says, if somebody comes in, if an unbeliever happens to drop in, which is kind of an interesting way to phrase that, uh, you never know an unbeliever might show up.

Just make sure you're not doing something chaotic in that particular instance, the tongues issue.

But if you're, if there's preaching, if there's proclamation of the truth, he'll fall on his face and say,

God is in this place. And what I would like to think the church is, is heaven on earth. It's the closest thing to heaven on earth.

It's where God is honored, Christ is exalted, and, and holiness is pursued.

And in that kind of environment, an unbeliever should feel like an outsider looking in and be having an experience the likes of which it is impossible to have anywhere else in the world.

And so it is the church. It is the church at worship. But it is exactly that that makes the unbeliever very much aware that he is not a part of it.

And that's crucial for understanding that you're outside the kingdom.

And I think to give the church up to unbelievers and let them dictate this is exactly opposite what we're to do.

And of course, the net effect of all that is all kinds of chaos and carnality and superficiality and shallowness and struggling

Christians and etc., etc. Yeah, but I think that, John, that we should design worship for Sunday morning for the time of assembling for seekers.

Because the New Testament makes it very clear that the only people who seek after God are those who've already been converted by the

Holy Spirit. Right. And we have this idea today that there are all these people who are unbelievers out there who are desperately seeking for God, but God is somehow fleeing from them and hiding from them.

And so… But he could be found through rock music. Yeah, but the Bible makes it very clear that nobody in their natural state seeks after God.

The seeking after God is the business of the Christian. You don't start seeking after God until after you've found

Him. That's the irony there. And that once we are converted, that begins the lifelong quest to know

God as deeply as we possibly can. But the whole point that John is saying, the New Testament, look at every way in which the

Bible speaks about the church as the communion of saints, as the ecclesia, those called out from the world, as the church curiaque, those who belong to and are the possession of Christ.

Sunday morning is that which fills our hearts and our minds with the Word of God and drives us to the mission field for evangelism outside the church.

But Sunday morning is not supposed to mean evangelism, sir. We often say in our church, there's only one seeker in our church, one true seeker, and that's the

Father who seeks true worshipers. Which is in John 4, and that's exactly where I'm going in the devotional.

Next week, it's Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well, John 4, 21.

He said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the

Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the

Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the

Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. In Romans chapter 3, we're told that no one seeks for God.

And in John chapter 4, we are told that the worshipers God is seeking will be the ones who worship him in spirit and in truth.

So God is seeking, we are not. Right. Very true. As Sproul said, until the heart is regenerated, and then the

Christian is the one who is seeking after God. God seeks after us, we don't seek after him.

Isn't that amazing? Yes. So you can't turn the church into a thing that is trying to appease the unbeliever.

You've turned the church into exactly something it's not, and was not meant to be.

This is what is, by the way, extremely dangerous about Andy Stanley's teaching, because this is exactly what he's trying to make the church into.

He's not trying to grow believers. He is turning this into a thing where he's trying to appease unbelievers.

But you know, whenever I preach, the gospel is always there, because believers need it as much as unbelievers need it.

If there should be, you know, Becky talked about somebody coming in and sitting in the back of the church, and you know, we don't know if they're a

Christian or not. So I'm going to hope that what I'm preaching is going to sink in, they're going to be convicted of sin and realize that the only solution, the only way to eternal life, the only way to have forgiveness and right standing with God and to escape the final judgment is by faith in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life, and just saying that, so that all believers will rejoice, amen, my sins are forgiven.

And then those who are not forgiven will hear that and go, I need that. Right. I see that I have sinned before God.

It'll sink in. And even in Paul's letters, he did this. He would have these little kind of add ins throughout his letters, as though he was speaking to somebody that may be sitting among that church that has not yet confessed their sin and come to follow

Jesus Christ. So it'd be a statement like in Romans 8, starting in verse 8, those who are in the flesh cannot please

God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

So that statement right there might be something that would cause an unbeliever to go, well, yeah, goodness. Do I have the spirit of Christ dwelling in me or not?

Right. And in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, or at least the second one that we have in Canon, he says, examine yourselves, test yourselves to see that you were in the faith, or do you not pass the test?

These things are placed upon people who may not truly be believers, that they would examine themselves according to what the

Bible says about their sin. And the solution to sin, which is only found in the blood of Jesus Christ, which we receive by faith, forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus Christ.

And anyway, I just cut right into that, following that little video that we played there, but all of that to say,

I totally agree with everything Drs. MacArthur and Sproul said there. Why would I disagree with what they said?

And again, I don't really think that the video that I made was in disagreement with any of that as well.

Like I said, it was sure to clarify that we're talking about an unbelieving friend.

We're not talking about an evangelistic effort where you're inviting a bunch of unbelievers to church or trying to attract unbelievers to your church, because that's not the church and that's not what church is supposed to be for.

The church is the believers gathered together, glorifying God, singing his praises, it's heaven practice.

This is the closest thing that we have to heaven, this side of heaven. It's the gathering of the saints together in worship.

But this is what we see the saints doing for all eternity in the book of Revelation. So it's kind of like we're putting on that rehearsal right now.

Right. There was something else I was going to say in relation to that. I was trying to remember what it was. Oh, yeah. Todd Friel, Craig mentioned this.

He said, it's a subject that I'm researching because you stand behind Dr. John MacArthur and Todd Friel from Wretched.

I was wondering your thoughts on this response to the same question versus your what video, Todd actually played that what video on an episode of Wretched.

And let's go ahead and give it to Todd, actually. So you're going to hear the same what video again, but Todd is going to be breaking in throughout the video explaining what church is supposed to be for the difference between church and evangelism.

Should the church be going out into the community to woo people in?

Should the church be using advertising and gimmicks and prize giveaways to try to get people to attend their church?

Let's listen to what what has to say. Should we invite unbelievers to church?

Sure. Why not? Church should be a place where anyone who comes through the doors will hear the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed.

The wages of sin is death, the scripture says. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

Lord. May this message be preached from every pulpit. But we need to understand unbelievers are not part of the church.

In Romans 8, 9, Paul said, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If, in fact, the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

The church is the body of Christ. Whoever is not of Christ is not part of his body. Can we, should we invite people to church?

Of course. But permit me to offer two considerations. Number one, inviting somebody to church is not evangelism.

Evangelism is sharing the gospel. Should you choose to invite them to attend your worship service, that's fine.

But simply inviting somebody to church is not, by definition, evangelism.

Consideration number two, let us not lure people into churches with gimmicks or productions like the postcard

I recently saw of a new church opening that says to all of the people in the town, hey, come to our opening worship service and you could win a trip to the

Bahamas on a love boat for four people. Say what?

This is a church who is trying to lure in the goats or anybody, frankly, by, well, if you don't mind me saying so, bribery, kind of a premise based on greed.

Hey, look, we know you don't go to church, but we know you love to go on a cruise. So why don't you come to our church and you might just get what you are coveting.

That ought not to be for the church. Don't let an unbeliever get comfortable.

They need to be convicted, though they're in the doors. They're still outside the church until they repent of their sin and are reconciled to God in Christ Jesus.

And don't use gimmicks to get them there. What you win them with is what you win them to. Not one soul has ever come to Christ through pop music or door prizes.

Give them the word of God. And do not use the church events, activities, gimmicks, giveaways, concerts, special events as bait.

And then maybe one day they'll feel the hook of the gospel. That is not what church is to be used for.

What's more important than inviting unbelievers is going to unbelievers. This is evangelism.

How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news?

Because faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So yes, invite your unbelieving friend to church and take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the rest of the unbelieving world.

When we understand the text. That is good news. If you are a person who regularly needs a pedicure, you will have beautiful feet when you bring the gospel to the unbelieving world.

And then if you choose, invite them to church.

The sound effect of the big steel doors closing there anyway. So you can invite an unbelieving friend to church with the intention of them hearing the gospel, but they're not part of the church, right?

And they should not be led to believe that they're part of the church. You know, if a church does this thing where they're welcoming unbelievers from all over the community and they come in and the pastor stands up there and he goes, you are all welcome here.

Yeah, they're welcome in the sense that they're a guest, but it's not their home. And don't make them feel at home because if they're not in Christ, it's not.

And there should be a certain expectation that after a period of time, either they're going to turn from their sin and believe the gospel, or you're going to have to ask them to leave.

And you're, you're setting yourself up for some pain and humiliation and some heartbreak and possible broken relationships.

If you have led this person to believe that they're always welcome here and you finally get to a point where you have to say, brother or sister,

I don't see how you're a believer. You've not shown any fruit. You've not come to me and asked, uh, you know, about repenting of sin.

Uh, we, you've not been baptized. Has any of this sunk in or, you know, they come to church on Sunday morning and sit there because it's their social club on Sunday morning.

I like the people here, right? It's not about that. It's about loving

God and worshiping him and giving him all glory. An unbeliever can exercise volition, which means doing something by the power of your own will, but they are not capable of exercising holy volition.

You cannot worship God in a way that is pleasing to God unless he has cleansed you and has made you righteous in his presence, acceptable unto

God, which we receive only by faith in Jesus Christ. Now you might look up that article that I did on John Pavlovitz too.

If you just type in pastor Gabe, John Pavlovitz, it'll come up. But I was responding to a comment that John Pavlovitz had made in a particular article where he was trying to educate the church on why people are leaving you.

Dear church, here's why people are leaving you. That was the name of the article. Oh yeah, I remember that one. And I basically responded with, well, the

Bible tells us why people leave us. In first John 2, 19, it says they went out from us, but they were not of us for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us, right?

That's why people leave the church. Now that's not an excuse for people in the church to act like jerks.

Oh yeah. And then when somebody leaves, you go, ah, well, see, yeah. First John 2, 19 says that it might become plain that they don't be a jerk.

Don't try to push them out with your attitude. So the reason why they left is because they hated the gospel, not because you were acting like a jerk.

Right. And, and that is why we need to show love and kindness to them. But you even need to gently communicate with an unbeliever and explain to them.

That you need to repent of your sin and trust in Jesus Christ, or you're not part of this body.

And we've never wanted to lead you to believe that you are part of this body. Right now we've had situations where like an unbelieving spouse.

We'll be there because they're right. Particularly among wives, like military wives, they will more than likely be

Christian and the husbands will not be. And so she'll start coming to church because he's deployed or something like that.

Right. And then he'll come back from a deployment or a training or something like that. And then start coming to church with her.

Oh, yeah. She's a believer. He's not, but we're not about to approach him and say, sorry, dude.

Can't be here. Yeah. No joke. There is going to be a more concerted effort on our part to know,

Hey, we need to reach out to this guy. We need to show him love and, uh, and share the gospel with him.

Yep. So that, and that's what his wife wants. Yes. He's there because his wife is there.

First Corinthians seven actually says something about that. And also first Peter chapter three. But still preaching the gospel to him so that he knows he still needs to turn from his sin, that he likewise will become a believer in Christ and a member of this body and closer to your spouse than you've ever been before when you come to know

Christ. So anyway, that's our show for today. I had more, but we're, we're coming up on the end of time here.

And I think the next thing that I have is going to take quite a bit longer. Okay. So I'm going to wait until next week on that.

Sounds good. All right. So let's conclude with prayer. In the meantime, if you want to send us an email, when we understand the text at gmail .com

is the email address to send your questions to, or comments, anything that you have to share, you know, suggestions about a video or something like that, we'll take those as well.

Yep. All right. Have happy black Friday. Happy.

Let's go say happy Thanksgiving, but that's over with and that's not for everybody. So everybody's still eating the leftovers though, babe.

Well, not everybody. We have plenty of friends elsewhere too. Not just in the U S well, that's true.

So I was sure to say that on the podcast yesterday. I said to our friends in the United States, happy Thanksgiving.

And to everybody else, go ahead and eat that turkey just for us. Just go get some deli

Turkey at the store. Make yourself a Turkey sandwich. Oh, get some mashed potatoes and gravy. That's what everybody else is doing.

Post Thanksgiving and some pie. Yes. Got to have the pie. And not one of those little, what do you call those pies that are like in the plastic wrap?

It's like the little pie at the, I think you can get them when you're walking into the cash register. Oh yeah.

Right. What are those called? I used to eat them all the time when I was a kid. They were like the, it's, it's like the pie filling fillings inside of it.

And it's like a pocket. Yeah. Right. It's got almost kind of like a hot pocket, but it's not, it's, it's the little pie. Oh, I can't remember what they're called.

Then why is that so hard for me? I loved him when I was a kid and I recently had one. I was like, Oh, yeah.

What was I thinking? Your palate's way different when you're a child. Oh yes. No joke.

I'll eat anything you put in front of me and call it candy. But man, yeah,

I'm not into those pies anymore. Anyway, don't eat that kind of pie. Get a real pie. A real pie. That's what we were saying.

And those are easy enough. Yeah. You can even make one yourself. Well, yeah. Yeah. Just get the little kind of cheat.

I get the already made pie crust. Oh, it doesn't matter. Already made pie filling. And I plop it together and bake it.

It's still, it's so good. It's still so good. It's yumalicious. It's better than anything else.

You're, you know, you're getting on the, on the little table that they have out there or something like that because it's made fresh and it comes out hot.

That's right. Unless it's one of those pies you make that you then have to set in the fridge and let it cool. Oh, those are fun too though.

Okay. Praying. Anyway, yes. Let's pray. Dear God, we thank you for our time together.

And I pray that you would give our listeners who have provided these questions for us today.

I pray that you would give them wisdom in heart, knowing how to respond to others, to unbelievers with the gospel, that we might be able to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others.

They would be convicted of their sin. They would come to the knowledge of God, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are stored up in Christ Jesus.

So that we may turn from sin and grow in righteousness and holiness with the people of God, with the saints, the church together, your body encouraging and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

May we continue to provide that for each other as we grow in holiness, this side of heaven, knowing as the apostle

Paul said in Philippians, that he who began this work in you will be faithful to complete it on the day of Christ.

And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. This is when we understand the text, a daily study in the word of truth.

So the truth, Hey, sorry. Did not think it was going to do that.

There we go. Okay. All better. Yep. The word of truth.

So the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him.

This is when we understand the text, a daily study in the word of truth. So the true worshipers, so the true worshipers, my pie is getting my title tongued up.

This is when we understand the text, a daily study in the word of truth. So the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him.

Visit our website, www .utt .com. Once again, it's faster.

Mute your phone. People are supposed to be texting.

This is when we understand the text, a daily study in the word of truth. So true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him.

I'm sorry. It's the pie, excuse me.

While I take a real big gulp right in the middle of my script here, I was trying to swallow, but my mouth is so dry.

I don't see where that Q is in the script. I'm looking for that. Grandpa, it's the grind.

Hmm. This is when we understand the day I've been, for your sake,

I've been trying not to crack jokes and you've had your phone go off and you're still eating your pie, apparently still eating it.

It's like dried up. My mouth should have gotten a water. Do we need to stop?

Okay. I was doing fine. Like you, you were making comments earlier and I'm like,

I'm not going to crack a joke because then she'll start laughing and the intro will take us another five or 10 minutes.