The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message that must be proclaimed. This news of a risen Savior is to be preached to all people and all nations as the only hope for a sin-sick and ruined world and this mission is given to not only individuals but also to local churches. What does a church that is zealous for evangelism look like? Zeal for missions begins with love for God and love for neighbor and these loves should propel a church to reach out and make Christ known.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Jason Dohme with the following message entitled, profile of the Evangelistic Church. Let's pray. Father, we've come here this weekend with a sense that we're not what we ought to be. And so we desire to sit at your feet and learn from you. And we're coming, God, in prayer to pray that you would do for us, do in us what we've not been able to do for ourselves and in ourselves.

We feel the lack, oh God. And so now we're praying that you would put your hand upon us, that you would use every speaker who's speaking this hour and every other hour of the conference to come and spark something in us that we've sensed is missing. Oh God, please come and bless your people. Please come and make us what we're not but we know we ought to be. Send your Holy Spirit to bring change to us, oh God, in Jesus' name, amen.

Paul writes this in his first letter to the church in Thessalonica, so this is 1 Thessalonians chapter one, beginning in verse five, for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. And you became followers of us and of the Lord having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia but also in every place your faith toward God has gone out so that we do not need to say anything. Paul, as he's writing to this church, is introducing us, a couple of thousands years later, introducing us to this church. And they're a church that received a pure gospel from Paul and then God established them in that gospel and then the gospel sounded forth from this church Paul says your faith went out it went out in every direction so that everybody has received the gospel from you I read this and I'm encouraged I'm encouraged The evangelistic church is not a mirage.

Isn't that a blessing to come to 1 Thessalonians and know that it's not a mirage? It has seemed like a mirage to us. We've had an awareness of our own shortcomings and the shortcomings of those who are with us in a local church. And we've looked out in the evangelical landscape and seen all the things that are done in the name of evangelism and have no footing whatsoever in the Word of God and we think where is this church? Where is this church that can be known for evangelism?

While Paul was introducing us He's seen it with his own two eyes and he's pointing to them as a church that's received a pure gospel, been established in that gospel, and then their faith went out. It sounded forth from this church, oh God give us this testimony. Decades from now, may men filled with the Holy Spirit look at our church and say, that's what happened. A pure gospel was received here. These people were established in that pure gospel and then their faith went out.

The gospel sounded forth from this church. Now, why have I been assigned to this talk? I want to assure you that it's not because I'm leading a church that has arrived and that all I have to do is just come and describe to you the church that I'm leading and then you'll know the profile of the evangelistic church. No, that's not why. Here's my self-assessment and the people that are in church with us would share this assessment.

It's not false humility. It's an accurate assessment. Several years ago, we were pitiful and now we're mediocre. And you laugh, but here's what that means. God has given us progress.

I'm the happiest guy to be mediocre because a couple of years ago I was pitiful. And most of the people in our church would say the same thing, praise God that we're not still pitiful that he didn't leave us at pitiful but that he's given us progress and now we're mediocre and having seen that with our own two eyes we have hope that the curve the trend can continue and he'll continue to give us possible so that maybe I'll give a speech a couple of years from now and I'll say, a couple of years ago we were in mediocre and now, you know, we're sort of good and God has given us more progress. This is our life in the faith is that God brings us to maturity. We're not saved and just brought to maturity in a day. And so I'm here because God has given us progress and I can at least describe what God has done among us.

Now here's a warning about this talk. There's a lot I won't be saying. This is a big topic and I've got one hour. So I'm just going to presume some things and go right over the top of them and not even address them. Things like, we're talking about the true gospel here.

There's a lot of false gospels. Well, churches need to know the true gospel and to be sending forth a true gospel. Things like people in churches need to be converted. So you better start with a church where most of the people are actual, actually have been born again and are converts. Things like discipleship is an important part of evangelism, and evangelism does not equal just proclaiming the gospel.

Discipleship is also part of the gospel, and so once you preach the gospel, it hasn't ended there, this is just the starting line, it's not the finish line at all. I'm not going to talk about any of that stuff. I'm just assuming that a healthy church knows these things and is going to be working towards these things. So there will be a lot of things that are like that I just won't mention. You say, how could he not mention that?

And I'm just gonna claim that it was time constraints and not that I didn't think of it. There are four texts of Scripture that I want to take you so you'll need to have your Bibles out that speak to the profile of an evangelistic church And the first one is Matthew chapter 22. So turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22. In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus is face to face with a lawyer, an expert in the law, a teacher of the law. And this lawyer has a question, and it's a really important question.

And I don't think he was asking it from honest motives, but never mind. We need to know the answer to it and it's a blessing that it's in the Gospels. Matthew 22 beginning in verse 36 The lawyer asks this in verse 36, teacher which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On These two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So in this text, Jesus gives us the great commandment and then the second greatest commandment, love for God and love for neighbor. Now you say, We're here to talk about the Great Commission. Why do you bring us to a Great Commandment text?

Well, here's why. The Great Commission is a natural, inevitable outflow of the Great Commandments. In other words, when you're getting the great commandments right, when you know what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, Mark and Luke throw in with all your strength, If you get that right, that naturally propels you into the Great Commission with a lot of momentum. So the Great Commandments And the Great Commission are not separate categories. They're not, they're not, they're not.

You cannot look at them in isolation. You cannot think of them as separate entities. The Great Commandment, there are things to be obeyed. And when you obey them, it sends you naturally, inevitably, into the Great Commission with much momentum. Can it be said that we love God with all our hearts and all our souls and all our minds, that we love God with all of our being, but we're silent.

Can it be said that we love God in this all-consuming way, but His praise is not on our lips, and we're not telling of the goodness that He's displayed to us, His kindness to us in a thousand ways, and yet when we encounter our neighbor, we've nothing to say to him about God. How unthinkable! How revealing is it about us in the condition of our hearts when we say we've a lack in evangelism? What does that mean about the great commandment? To love God in an all-consuming way.

Can it be said that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves if we're so governed by the fear of man that we won't open our mouths and talk to him about his greatest need. We love our neighbor as ourselves and yet we have so little concern for his soul that we just are not willing to push through the fear of man to the other side of it where we open our mouth and say, friend have you considered what will happen after you die. We'll not speak to him about his soul. Now we began in 1st Thessalonians. Paul's talking about an evangelistic church here.

Here's what he says in chapter 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 8. So affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives because you had become dear to us. These Thessalonians, this evangelistic church, this church that gives us a profile of what it means to be a local church that is established in evangelism has been trained by Paul. Paul's talking about them in chapter one, Paul's talking about himself in chapter two, and you can tell this is a church that's been trained by Paul.

Paul says, I didn't just have a message to proclaim, although that's so important and vital for the gospel, but I came to share with you my own life you were dear to me when we share the gospel with our neighbor and we know how the Bible defines neighbor how broad that is we're not talking about the guy who lives next door. When we share the gospel with our neighbor we're saying I want you to be my brother. I don't want you to intellectually assent to these five propositions. I'm asking for so much more than that. Come and be my brother.

I'll share my life with you. You'll be an object of my affection. It's to love your neighbor as yourself. Can it be that we love our neighbor as ourself and we won't even open up our mouths? We have no desire to share our life.

So we start here, when we're talking about evangelism, when we're talking about the Great Commission, we have to start here at the Great Commandments so that we understand our failure, we understand why we're coming to a conference about evangelism, why we feel the lack and the need to come and hear people to tell us about something that's so central to the Christian faith. And it won't do to just say we need to make progress and make a resolution. Okay, That was bad, so we need to stop having that lack. We're going to do some stuff. It will not do to simply say that.

Have you ever seen that in a church? Of course you have. Of course you've seen that in a church. We've got a lack. We're not, we know we should be doing this.

We're not doing it. What are we gonna do? Isn't that how it goes? We'll hire an evangelism pastor and we'll make it his job to whip up the troops and get some activity going and then we'll be an evangelistic church. This is the modern evangelical view.

This is what happens when you have a lack in a normal church you hire an evangelism pastor And you make it his job to whip up the troops and to make people feel bad about what they haven't been doing and To make them invite their neighbors to the church service to hear the gospel. Isn't this true? Isn't this how we approach the gap that we find in our churches relating to evangelism? No! A thousand times no!

We've skipped repentance! We've just said we need to do better. Now we're saying that the lack is really a lack in the area of love for God and love for our neighbor. These are the most fundamental things of the Christian faith. And we're gonna skip over that and skip repentance and just go to doing stuff?

A thousand times no. How long is that gonna last? Okay, so you hired an evangelism pastor. He's busy whipping up the troops and we're gonna do some stuff. How long is that going to last?

No, we have to start by saying, something so fundamental, we've disobeyed. This is sin, brothers and sisters. This is sin in our hearts that we've not loved God as we ought to love him, that we've not loved our neighbor as ourselves. And we can't skim over the top of that. We've got to fall on our faces before God and cry out, oh God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

We've got to be like the Pharisee in the parable who won't even raise his eyes to heaven and he beats his breast and says, oh God have mercy upon me a sinner. In Luke 7, Jesus goes to dinner at Simon's house. Simon's a Pharisee. Simon doesn't love Jesus. Simon loves doctrine.

Simon loves the law. Simon loves a lot of things but he doesn't love Jesus. There's a prostitute there. She doesn't know hardly anything about the things Simon knows about but she loves Jesus and she weeps and she wipes his feet with her hair. So local churches, who are we in the parable?

Are we Simon who have many many many loves? Or are we the woman who loves Jesus? What do our lives say? Don't even answer that with your mouth. Look at your life.

Look at the allocation of your time. Who do we love? What do we love? So until we are this, until we are not Simon and we are the woman who will weep and be at his feet because he's forgiven us much and so we love him much until we're that person. Just forget making progress in evangelism.

Find another conference to go to. Seriously. We're not going to have meaningful progress until we repent. That we've not loved God as we ought to love him, that we've not loved our neighbor, and that these are the most fundamental things. Brothers and sisters, repentance is required.

If we want meaningful progress in the category of evangelism, it must start with repenting and falling down before God. Here's something I've learned, and it applies to all of life. It applies to business, it applies to family life, it applies to church life, any category. It's this. Success or failure is dependent on only a couple of levers only a couple of levers here's here's what I mean they're big levers these couple of levers and and if you'll pull them with all your might you'll be successful even if you don't make much headway on the hundred other littler levers around.

But conversely, if you spend all your time on these hundred other little levers, but you don't pull these big two, you'll fail. So it's not about counting the levers and how many levers did you... It's did you pull the big levers. The great commandments is a big lever. Love for God.

If you don't pull the love your neighbor lever, it doesn't matter how many other levers you pull. You'll not be evangelistic. Your church will not be characterized by faithfulness in this category that's so critical. So it begins with love. That's the first text, Matthew 22.

It begins with love. Love for God, love for a neighbor. Number two. Consider Matthew 10 28. I'll read it to you now.

Matthew 10-28. And, do not fear those who kill the body that cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. That's God. Don't fear people who are out of options when they kill your body. God is not out of options when he kills your body.

Fear God. Now evangelistic churches have together as a group of brothers and sisters who have locked their arms together to live life together, they have together gotten a hold of this, and they've learned to fear God. Why don't we share our faith? Why not? We're petrified.

And I don't even think we know why we're petrified. We're just petrified. It's just scary to engage and initiate and ask somebody about the condition of their soul. But when we fear God as we ought to fear God, We don't fear man. The fear of God is a controlling fear.

It's an overriding fear. So if you've got this fear, the other little fears are subjugated to it. The fear of man, the fear of circumstances, the fear of make the list as long as you want, all those fears will come right up under it when you really and truly fear God. It's a controlling fear that makes God large and that makes man shrink by the minute. Oh God, give us more fear of the Lord so that God would be large to us and man would be shrinking by the minute.

Now As we fear the Lord, here's what we'll find. You don't die when you share the gospel. It does not kill you. And as we fear the Lord, and so all those other fears are overridden and we obey and we find out that we didn't die And we find out how silly and inconsequential all those fears that we've served for how many decades, how many decades have you served the fear of man. Are you willing to serve the fear of man for another decade?

By the grace of God, I am not willing to serve that fear for another decade. May God give us liberty from that fear. May God give us the controlling, governing fear of the fear of the Lord. Now, back to our levers. To me, I believe these are the big two levers.

Love and the fear of the Lord. Love for God and neighbor is a big lever that we have to pull or we're going nowhere. The fear of the Lord is a big lever that we have to pull or we're going nowhere. So Why haven't we been evangelistic churches? We don't really fear God as we ought to fear him.

We lack the fear of the Lord. And what is the antidote to this? Stoke the fires of love for God. Stoke the fires of the fear of the Lord, and how do we do this? Through the most basic things.

Through the things you're already thinking about, like praying, like being in the presence of God. You remember Isaiah? In Isaiah 6 he comes into the presence of the Lord he's holier than we are but he is undone he's undone he's filled with love he's filled with the fear of the Lord this is how we do it we go into the presence of the Lord in prayer and we'll find our love for Him increasing. We'll find our fear of Him increasing. We study our Bibles, not as an academic exercise, but as before the Lord, reading our Bibles and learning to love Him and fear Him.

Who can read the accounts of the Bible and not grow in love for God and in fear of God? If you're reading your Bible and your love for God's not growing and your fear of the Lord is not growing, you're not paying attention. As we prayerfully open our Bibles and say, oh God, teach me today. Our love for Him grows. Our fear of Him grows as we see how much there is to love of Him and how much there is to fear of Him in what He's revealed to us through His Word.

Are you surprised so far? Talking about evangelism. We haven't talked a lot about evangelism yet or have we? Did you think I was going to talk about techniques? It's not techniques.

It's not technique. It's not technique. It's not technique It's our hearts brothers and sisters Do we love him do we love our neighbor Do we fear him? We get these things right. We pull these big levers and evangelism is gonna fall in place with a hundred other things.

It's gonna fall into place. Number one was love. Number two was fear. Fear of God. Number three, I turn to Acts 13.

Acts 13. Acts 13 is another profile of an evangelistic church. It's a church at Antioch. When you launch Paul and Barnabas, you get to be called an evangelistic church. Amen.

When you launch Paul and Barnabas, as we'll see in these verses in Acts 13, you get to be called an evangelistic church. Acts 13 verses 1 through 3. Now in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul as they ministered to the Lord and fasted the Holy Spirit said Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away." To me when I read these verses I say this is just a strange but wonderful mixture.

They're waiting, but they're ready. Normally when I'm waiting I'm procrastinating. Normally when I'm waiting it's because I'm not ready but this is not the church at Antioch. They're waiting and they're ready. They're ministering to the Lord.

They're fasting, they're praying, they're listening and they hear from the Holy Spirit, and they obey, they sinned. See in this text where a mighty work of evangelism didn't result from quote unquote evangelistic activity. Now we think we need to be more evangelistic. Let's get up the beat rate. Let's speed up, do more, increase activity.

Is that what we see in Acts 13? And there's a great commission on what are you doing just waiting there before the Lord?" Well the truth of the matter is the Lord is the only one who can produce any of this fruit anyway. You could go off and do a hundred programs, a thousand activities, and if the Lord doesn't build the house you do what? You labor in vain. The church at Antioch understood that, and so there they are waiting before the Lord.

They're ministering to the Lord, they're fasting, they're seeking the Lord. Where's the evangelistic activity here? We have to start looking at this as evangelistic activity. We need to let the Bible determine and define what we're talking about here. Okay, so Paul and Barnabas get launched out of this into the first missionary journey?

Is this evangelistic activity? You better believe it is. You better believe it is. Maybe we'd be more efficient to wait on the Lord and to minister to Him and to fast and to pray than we would be to thrash about like we're inclined to thrash about. They're not Martha In the kitchen clattering around with every pot and pan, they're Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to his words.

They're depending upon his spirit and the spirit speaks and the spirit sends. That's verse 4. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus. So there's something that men are doing here. They're laying their hands on him, having heard from the Holy Spirit, and sending them out.

But what does verse 4 say? Being sent out by the Holy Spirit. Is your church characterized by this spirit? Ours is not. So we've made progress, but we haven't made enough progress here.

We're not characterized by this. So this has been a very helpful process to consider these texts and to say we got to have progress there. We're not care but we need to be characterized by this by by laying siege to heaven. I don't say that in a disrespectful way at all. I say that in the way that we're encouraged to persevering fervent prayer.

Lay siege to heaven. Beg God. Beg God to send people out of your congregations to send you evangelists to make you what you're not don't you dare just launch a program to fill a gap and a perceived need in your church. Don't you dare just launch a program. There's so much more here in Acts 13 than generating activity.

Where are the churches who will minister to the Lord and fast and pray and beg God? Where are they? Oh God makes Sovereign Redeemer a church like that. We're not today, But I want, I want to be that. Number four, turn to Ephesians 4.

Ephesians 4. Now we're gonna talk about something that you have no part in. You cannot do this and you won't even play a part in it. So many things we say the results are God's but duty is man's and we have a duty in it. You don't even have a duty in this one.

You are completely dependent and at the mercy of God for this one. Ephesians 4 beginning in verse 7. Ephesians 4 verse 7. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore he says when he ascended on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.

Now this, he ascended, what does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is also the one who ascended far above the heavens that he might fill all things. And he himself, Jesus Christ, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now, this text isn't saying that evangelism is the exclusive domain of a few gifted people. Text is not saying that.

Evangelism is not, is not, is not, is not the exclusive domain of those with the gift of evangelism. The Great commission was given to the people of God, all the people of God in every geography for all time from the minute it was given and it has imposed upon us a duty before God, every single one of us, every man, woman, and child who names the name of Christ. And yet, that said, at the same time, God according to his own wisdom gives certain ones the gift of evangelism and makes them different and makes them a disproportionate blessing and makes them disproportionately fruitful than I'm going to be and maybe than you're going to be because he gave them a gift. He gave me other gifts. He has not given me this one.

But I still have a duty and I'm still delighted to engage in the Great Commission, but I'm never going to be as fruitful or naturally predisposed to this as someone who's been given the gift of evangelism. But it's a blessing to the church, and what's it for? It's for equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. It's to make guys like me more able to do what they're able to do so naturally. Did you get that?

God sending us gifted evangelists, giving certain sons and daughters of his the gift of evangelism and placing them in local churches is for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. Not that they would go and do all the evangelism, but that they would spur me on to be more able to do what comes so naturally to them. You've heard this saying, a rising tide lifts all boats. That's what this is. A rising tide lifts all boats.

God sending gifted evangelists into your local church is a rising tide that will lift the other boats in your local church. It's equipping the saints for the work of ministry. It's stirring us up to love and good works. Now, two sides to this coin. Let's talk about the wonderful side, shall we?

The wonderful side of this coin is that these people are such a blessing. They pull us out of our comfort zone. Evangelism is coming out of their pores. They're oozing evangelism. You're terrified and they do it so naturally and it's a blessing because you are comfortable and they make you uncomfortable and they show you how it's done.

And they laid down for us a pattern that if we'll just in some way emulate the pattern, we'll find ourselves making progress and being more obedient to God by sharing the gospel. Here's the sometimes not so wonderful other side of the coin. Many or most of these gifted evangelists will be young zealots who are on fire but they're not very wise yet. Ever seen that? Ever seen somebody, a young Christian with the gift of evangelism?

Truly, you look at them, you know God has put his hand upon them and given them this gift. And they are on fire and man, if they had an ounce of wisdom, it would be an ounce more than what you see in them. And they've got a formula in their brain and it's this evangelism equals street preaching Evangelism equals Passing out flyers on the sidewalk four nights a week and if you're not doing it you are the most shameful compromiser and they have not learned yet about progressive sanctification that God brings his people along so patiently, so kindly, and they're not like God, man. They're ready to bring you up to speed. And they've not learned that God distributes different gifts to different people so that we're not all a mouth and that a body with just mouth is a monster.

Kind of a body is that. They've not learned about progressive sanctification and they've not learned about the diversity of gifts. And they're like Paul, who had the gift of singleness, and in 1 Corinthians 7 he says, I wish everyone was single. Well that wouldn't be very good for the human race, now would it? That sounds like a one-generation plan to me.

But that's Paul. God's given him a gift and he's so excited about his gift that he wants everyone to be single, only Paul is wise. So Paul ends that thought by saying, but God gives different gifts to different people and they've not learned that yet. So they've got all the zeal of Paul for their gift with none of Paul's wisdom. Now what should a pastor do?

Every pastor is going to encounter this. What should he do? He should be a pastor. He should be a shepherd. He should put his arm around that young fellow who's so full of fire and say, I want to hand you a pair of spectacles.

I think you're looking through the wrong pair of spectacles and it's causing you to despise your brothers and sisters in Christ. You shouldn't despise them. You're gonna learn some things that you don't know today. Here, try these on. You know, the right lens is progressive sanctification.

God's really patient with his people. You should be more patient with God's people. And the left lens is the diversity of gifts in the body. Not everybody's a gift of angels. Everybody can see it's coming out of your pores, and you do it so naturally.

But not everybody has that gift, so you're going to have to be patient. And you're going to have to be rather than badgering us, you'd be a lot better off to set a pattern for us. We have a hunger for it. We'll follow. Man, blaze the trail.

You'll look back, and you'll find some people coming down that trail with you. Look through these glasses. Now, this is what happened to Sovereign Redeemer. This is why we've made progress. God sent us evangelists.

God sent us people who'd been given the gift of evangelism and that makes this the most evangelistic church I've ever been a part of in 30 years as a Christian because of me. No, I've been following on this, not leading on this, but I thank God that he sent us men and women with the gift of evangelism. And they are. They're laying down a pattern. They're helping us.

They're equipping us. They're equipping these Saints for the work of the ministry. Much of it's just by the pattern and example that they're setting. It all started with a bad idea. Let me give you a window into my twisted brain.

It all started with a bad idea, man. As soon as the church started, came and said, here's what I want to do, and I want you to bless it. I Want to buy a trailer I want to buy a gas grill I want to buy a bunch of hot dogs I want to wheel it into a parking lot I want to make some signs that say come meet your neighbors free hot dogs, and I want to share the gospel with whoever shows up." Well, that's never gonna work, okay? That's not a plan for success, but I'm thinking this, not saying this. You're getting a window into my brain, not a window into what I actually said.

I'm thinking this. But, we're doing nothing, and what he's suggesting isn't nothing. It's something. So let's do it and see if we can learn something from this failed experiment. And maybe the next experiment will be more successful.

He was right. I was wrong. His instincts were right. Trust the instincts of the evangelist. I guess that's one point we should put in here.

Trust the instincts of the evangelist. Months. Every Tuesday night. Parking lot hot dogs. Ten or twenty people every week from the community we have no other connection to who we never would have met and rub shoulders with come and sit down in a chair and Eat a hot dog and engage with you on pretty much whatever you want to talk about, including the condition of their soul.

Week after week, 10 people, 20 people, something in between, every single week. Wasn't a bad idea. It was a great idea. It was a brilliant idea. It was my idea.

No, no. Here's what we've learned since then. Evangelism is self-feeding. Evangelism is self-feeding. You don't die.

In fact, exactly the opposite. You power through your fear of man which has been governing you and you open your mouth and you talk about the justice of God but the goodness of God And it's the most exhilarating thing you've ever done in your life. And you get to hear the gospel come out of your own mouth and it comes complete with God's kindness to you through a period of however long you've served Him, however long He's been your King, you get to talk about how good He's been to you. And you just hear the words come out of your own mouth, the beauty of the gospel from your own lips to a sinner to someone who's lost in their sins and it's exhilarating. My wife and I have a running joke at our house.

I'll be sitting around doing nothing, feet up. She's working like she's always doing something and and she'll say, hey could you do this or that? Just something. You know, could you, would you do this? And invariably now because it's the running joke, now remember she's working hard and has been working hard, I've got my feet up.

But I will say, do I have to do everything? And always, invariably, she will answer, no, just something. I think this would be a good running joke in our churches. Do I have to do everything? No, you don't have to do everything.

You don't have to convert the world tomorrow, but you do have to do something. You do have to take one step, and by the way, you'll find that step to be exhilarating, but if you don't take it, you won't be exhilarated. Are you more disposed to share the gospel or less disposed to share the gospel after you've just shared the gospel? By a factor of a thousand you're more disposed to share the gospel. Oh, power through the fear of man that has governed you and share the gospel one time and you'll be looking for your next target, your next person to speak of the goodness of God, the glories of the gospel.

The Evangelism is self-feeding and that's been true of us. It started out in the parking lot and it's the parking lot still happening. Okay weekly the parking lot. Now another guy in the church also a gifted evangelist says I've been individually doing some evangelism back here in this government subsidized housing. Maybe not a place you want to take your family, or at least so I thought.

I want to do a Saturday night thing there. Will you support that? Yeah, we'll support that. I've had enough of telling the evangelists they've got a bad idea, right? We're going to support that and do that and try that.

So now Saturday nights, different group of people, government subsidized housing, you really can take your kids there, it'll be okay. It's not as dangerous as you think it is. You can share the gospel there and we are on Saturday nights different group of people. Saturday mornings the abortion clinic different group of people outside preaching the gospel appealing to women don't don't image of God Jesus came different group of people now so these are three things that are happening every week and there are other things that are going on in Washington DC. There was a Reason rally.

This is a gathering of atheists. A guy in our church says, I want to take up a group. I want to evangelize atheists. Okay. Just gas money.

Let's go. There's a pro-homosexual rally downtown Raleigh. We want to go down there, we want to share the gospel with homosexuals. Okay, that's not even gas money. We live practically in Raleigh.

Let's go. Evangelism is self-feeding. Now, none of that were we engaged in three years ago. None. Very little two years ago.

I'm telling you, I'm telling you, trust me, It's self-feeding. Now, have we decided that we're doing evangelism now and forget about family discipleship? May it never be. We're working from the base, from the foundation of family discipleship, and it's the gospel sounding forth from that our faith is going out from solid home life and in fact almost everything that I described to you with a couple of exceptions almost all of that is done is engaged in as families. Family evangelism.

Two benefits from that. First, we're communicating to our children that we're deadly serious about obeying the Great Commission, about obeying the command of God to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're communicating just by the pattern of our life that we're deadly serious about obeying God in this category. Secondly, we're training the next generation of evangelists. Son, hear your father share the gospel with this lost soul.

Daughter, go stand next to your mother while she shares the gospel with this woman who's never heard the gospel, the true gospel, the real gospel before. Now that brings us to training. Is there a place for training? Undoubtedly. Get great materials.

Hone your techniques so that you're better, you're clear with the gospel. You're more effective with the gospel, but that is a lousy substitute for doing something. So train all you want, but don't dare make that a substitute for doing something. Do I have to do everything? No, just something.

Just something. And the something can't just be training until the end of the age. But if I don't just say it just right, you know what? God is sovereign over salvation. God is sovereign over salvation.

You don't have to have just the right, most winsome turn of phrase so that they'll be saved. That's not how salvation works. Give them the bad news of their condition before a righteous God and give them the good news of what God has done through Jesus Christ and you'll have done plenty. Proclaim. Don't talk about rock layers and millions of years.

Proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Preach Christ crucified. So I've described a bunch of events. Is it all events? I would say only a small portion of what we're doing in the category of evangelism is event centered.

But the event Raise our sensitivity. Raise our sensitivity to it and make us so much more likely as we just encounter people to have sharing the gospel at the top of our mind and have it occur to us as we run into people in the community. We need to do something so that it occurs to us when we run into people in our community to share the good news, to speak with them about the matters of the soul. A few concluding remarks. What is the profile of the Evangelistic Church?

Well, the Bible defines it. The Bible has to define every category, doesn't it? So the evangelistic church is one where people have received a true gospel and they've been established in that gospel and they sound it forth like Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1. An evangelistic Church is one where the people are growing in the great commandments. They're actually increasing in their love for God and increasing in their love for their neighbor like Jesus exhorts us to, commands us in Matthew 22.

An evangelistic church is one where the people are growing in the fear of God as we read in Matthew 10 verse 28. An evangelistic church is a church where the people are seeking the Lord, they're ministering to the Lord, they're fasting, they're praying, they're laying seeds to heaven and begging God to tell them what to do to be a blessing. As we saw the church in Antioch was doing in Acts 13. It's a church more like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to Him than it is like Martha rattling around in the kitchen doing a lot of things but not doing anything. An evangelistic church is a church where God has sent gifts.

Sovereignly, unilaterally sent gifts. Put his hand on certain sons and daughters and then sent them into local churches to equip the Saints for the work of the ministry and to give them progress in the areas that are succumbed so naturally to them, as we saw in Ephesians 4. I'll close with this. Romans chapter 1 verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Greek Father I thank you for a mighty gospel of good news for the Jew first and also for the Greek for all of humanity. All of humanity, good news.

Thank you for the sovereignty of God and salvation and that before the foundation of the earth You decided that you would make for yourself a people for the glory of your name. And now one by one by one by one, you're calling those people from an unregenerate state, and you're taking out the heart of stone, and you're giving them a heart of flesh and causing them to be born again. God, what a privilege that you would include us. God, if we've learned anything, it's that you don't need us. But I pray that we would love you, and I pray that we would demonstrate our love for you by obeying you.

Pray that we would love our neighbors enough to speak to their soul, to compel them to come into the feast. Give us these kind of churches, oh God, raise up a thousand churches in our land who conduct themselves just like the church in Thessalonica who have received a pure gospel and been established in that gospel and then sounded forth in every direction. May it be so, God, give this to us. We beg you that you would give this to us. In Jesus' name, amen.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is dedicated to proclaiming the sufficiency of Scripture for church and family life, and to the establishment of biblically ordered churches. For more information, resources, and products, please visit our website at www.ncfic.org.