Well, good morning. Welcome to Christian Life Academy. Let's open with a word of prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning that we can once again gather as your people to fellowship with one another, to learn from your word, to be encouraged in our faith. Father, we ask that you would speak to us this morning through the scriptures and by your spirit, that you would sanctify us, instruct us in your truth, and that you would Increase our joy as we ponder and consider anew the salvation that you have wrought through the life and death of your son, Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray, amen. Well, this morning is the fourth Sunday of the month and so we are in our practical theology track this morning. So I want to briefly talk about what we mean by that and some of the topics we'll be discussing in the future and then we'll jump into our current topic. Practical theology, what we mean by that is simply the application of biblical theology, systematic theology, historical theology, to our everyday lives as Christians. So what we're considering is all the practices of the church and of the Christian life and how they're undergirded by our systematic theology, our understanding of the scriptures, and how we apply the doctrines that we believe and hold in our lives and in the life of the church. And so the goal of practical theology is ongoing reformation, to reshape our lives and the life of the church to reflect what we find in the scriptures, what the Bible instructs us as to how we are to live and how we are to conduct ourselves as a church. And so the hope is that we are able to reshape our lives and the life of our church to better accord with how God has instructed us to live as Christians, and that it would deepen our experience of worship and of the Christian life. And so, as we do practical theology, there are about four questions that we would ask as we consider any given practice in our lives or in the church. First of all, what is it that we're doing? And then, why are we doing it? And then, well, what should we be doing according to the scripture? and then how should we respond to the difference between what we may be doing in practice and what the scripture instructs us to do. And so the goal here is to equip us to live Christianly, to live as Christians and not like the world. Rather than simply filling our minds with knowledge about God and about the scripture, understanding a bunch of doctrine and systematic theology, we want to know how are we to take that and put it into practice in our daily lives. So I want to look at a couple of verses quickly and then we'll discuss various topics that we'll be addressing in coming months. We'll start in James chapter 1 beginning in verse 22. So James is very practical in his approach to the Christian life. You might even consider James to be a sort of New Testament wisdom literature, very similar to the Psalms. or the Proverbs, I mean. But here's what James says in James 1, 22 through 25, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. So he says, if we hear the scripture and we don't actually obey it, that we're deceiving ourselves. He goes on and says, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." So we're to look into the scriptures and let it instruct us what kind of people we are supposed to be and how we are to live our lives and we're to actually do what it says. not suggestions, this is God's instructions for the Christian life. In chapter two, beginning in verse 14, James also says this, what does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. And so, James was saying, what does it matter if you know all the right doctrine, even if you know the right words to say, if you don't actually do them? What does it matter if someone that you know, a brother or sister in the Lord even, is destitute, they're hungry, they're in need, and you you bless them with your words, you know all the right things to say, but you don't give them anything to eat or clothes to wear, then your faith is dead. It's just knowledge that hasn't actually changed your heart. Flip over to 1 John with me, just a couple of pages over in 1 John chapter 3. John's general letter here, he says in 1 John 3 verse 18, So he's not saying that we shouldn't love with our words. We are to love in truth, that is to speak the truth, but we're also to love with our actions. And so if we love God and if we love other people, That will be reflected not just in a hunger and a thirst for knowledge of the scriptures, but also in a desire to obey God and to live out the things he has commanded us in the scripture. So, over the course of these fourth Sundays in CLA, we're going to be considering a variety of different topics that have to do with putting our faith into practice. We'll look at topics like our worship and our liturgy on Sunday morning. what it means for us as a church to fellowship with one another, what does it look like for families to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to conduct family worship at home. We'll look at subjects like prayer, spiritual gifts, evangelism, apologetics, ethics as the Word of God is applied to our lives. Those are some of the topics we're going to be looking at in the coming months, and we're going to begin with evangelism. I chose this one. I'd already been thinking about this. On Wednesday nights a while back, we went through a study in the book of Acts and looked at marks of salvation, and so I wanted to follow that up with some discussion of evangelism. And so this is a topic that we're familiar with, that we use the word quite a bit and toss it around in church circles, but what do we mean by evangelism? In 2 Timothy chapter four, Paul is writing to the young Timothy who is in Ephesus, there setting that church in order, pastoring that church, and Paul tells him, that he is to be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. So what does he mean by do the work of an evangelist? What does it mean to be an evangelist or to do the work of an evangelist? Well, evangelism is simply the proclamation or the speaking of the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ by repentance and faith. So, we talk about Genesis 3.15. After the fall, the sin that Adam and Eve committed, God is pronouncing the curse because they broke his law, and when he curses the serpent, he gives this promise. He's cursing the serpent, but there's a promise contained therein for humanity, that there will one day come a seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent, who will defeat Satan. And so we see there a seed of the gospel, right? This is a promise of the coming Messiah, the promise of the coming Savior. And so often we refer to that verse as the proto-evangelion, the proto-gospel. This is the first promise of the good news of Jesus Christ. And so that's what evangelism is, is to share with others the good news of Jesus Christ. What is evangelism not? Evangelism is not simply loving our neighbors by doing good things for them. That could be a very good thing to do and it may even open doors for evangelism, but simply doing good things for your neighbor is not evangelism. Social action is not evangelism. It can be tied to evangelism, but in and of itself it is not evangelism. Fellowship with other Christians is not evangelism. Here's a difficult one, I think, for a lot of us, is a personal testimony about something in our lives is not necessarily evangelism. Now if it's a personal testimony about how Christ has saved us and it involves a clear articulation of the gospel, that can be evangelism. But I have often seen people give a testimony of sobriety or of how they got their life straight from all these mistakes they were making. and say that they're giving their testimony, but that's not evangelism. There's no mention of Christ, of sin, of repentance, of faith. That's not evangelism if we leave Christ out of it. So as good a thing as it may be that somebody comes out of substance abuse of some sort and gets sober, that in and of itself is not evangelism. It can be used to evangelize if the gospel message is clearly spoken, but the key to evangelism is that we actually have to tell people about Jesus. We have to tell people about what he has done and call them to repentance and faith. So, why should we evangelize? Why should we do this work of the evangelist? Because sometimes it can be a little awkward, right? To have these sorts of conversations with people. Well, the primary reason that we should evangelize is because Jesus himself has told us to, right? In Acts chapter one, Christ is about to ascend into heaven and before he ascends he is speaking to those who have gathered there to watch his ascension into heaven and they ask him if he's going to restore the kingdom to Israel at this point and his response is this, in verse 7 he says, and he said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. So he's telling his followers that they are going to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, power from on high, the Holy Spirit, to enable them to testify or to be a witness to Christ. Not a witness to prosperity or a witness to their sobriety or whatever it is, but a witness to Christ in Jerusalem, which is the city where they live and are gathered at that point, and in all Judea, the surrounding countryside, and Samaria, which they kind of looked down on socially, and to the ends of the earth, to the Gentile nations even. So he's sending his people out to evangelize the world, to testify to the world about Christ and what he has done. And so he has commanded us that we are to evangelize. That's the primary reason why we do it. All other reasons are secondary to that one. We have been commanded by our Lord and Savior to tell others about him. Again, we can look at Matthew chapter 28, the Great Commission, which is very similar where he tells us to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel message. Over in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1 as Paul is writing to the church in Thessalonica. Now this is a Gentile church there in the Roman Empire. And the apostle writes to them and says in the beginning of verse seven, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." Now that's a sobering passage right there. Those that do not know Christ, who do not obey the gospel message, which means that they don't repent and believe, There's vengeance and eternal destruction, everlasting destruction awaiting them. This should be a motivation for us to share the gospel. Hell is very real and people, eternal destinies are at stake. And so we have a compelling reason to share the gospel with them. Christ has told us to do it. And if they don't hear the gospel, they're destined for eternal destruction. In Matthew chapter 22, Matthew 22, verse 37 through 40, Jesus has been approached and they are asking him about the law of God and what the greatest commandment is. And we're very familiar with this passage. 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 one is, like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Well, think about that in the context of evangelism. If we love the Lord with everything we have, with our heart, with our soul, with our mind, with our strength, wouldn't we want to tell other people about this one that we love so much? I mean, just think about it. You get excited about something, whether it's a movie that you've seen or a book you've read or whatever it is, if you're excited about it, What do you do? You tell other people about it. So if we love the Lord with everything we have, we're gonna want to tell others about Him. And we're to love our neighbor as ourselves. So if we truly love our neighbor, we would want to share with them the good news of salvation by faith in Christ. Turn over to 2 Corinthians now. I know we're jumping around quite a bit, but 2 Corinthians chapter five, beginning in verse 17. Again, this is a Gentile church in the Roman Empire that the Apostle is writing to, and he says this to them. He says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So Paul says, this is the task that we've been given as a church and as believers. We've been given this ministry to plead with others for them to repent, for them to be reconciled to God through Christ Jesus. This is the task we've been given. This is God's means for accomplishing the salvation of sinners, is that his people would testify of him, that they would plead with others to believe the gospel and repent. If we love Him, and if we love our neighbor, and if we recognize that not only has He commanded us to do this, but this is the means that He has determined to use in the salvation of our neighbors, is us speaking the gospel to them. then this should motivate us to do so, right? This is what God said he was going to do. So it's going to be effective, not every single time, but we can trust that if we're faithful to obey him and to speak the gospel as he's commanded us to, this is how he said he's going to work. He hasn't told us to do this and said, oh, by the way, I want you to do that, but I'm actually gonna do this other thing in order to bring people to repentance. No, this is the method that he has chosen to work in the world to spread the message of Christ is through his people testifying of him to those that we know. So these are our motivations for evangelism. Now let's talk about the country that we live in. Let's talk about America. Do we need to evangelize in America today? I think in the past there's been maybe some conception that, hey, we live in this Christian nation. The majority of our neighbors are Christians, and so we need to think about world missions, and we do. We're going to talk about missions next week. But all of our neighbors are Christians, right? Especially certain areas in the Southeast and the Bible Belt, you know, everybody's a Christian. So they think. But here's some of the recent polling data that I just saw, and this is Gallup-Barna polls, so how Christian are they even? But they've taken these polls every couple of years of the general population of the United States, and they ask some questions. They ask some questions to determine what a person's worldview is. And we're going to talk about what their definition of that is. They ask some questions about church attendance, about the importance of scripture, and different things of that nature. But they ask a question, are you a Christian? And here's the answer. In 2023, 69% of the population of America says, yes, I'm a Christian. 69%. Now, interestingly, when they ask if people believe in God, 81% answered that question in the affirmative, said, yes, I believe in God. Only 69% though claim that they're a Christian. Now, as they ask more questions, they have some questions to determine whether or not a person is a born again Christian, a Protestant of some nature. And so they determined that 32% of the population is born again, according to their definition of that. Now, interestingly, just a couple of short years ago in 2021, that was 36%. So it's fallen by 4% in two years, which is interesting to think about. When they ask how many attend church regularly, meaning at least once a month, The answer is 29%. But here's where it gets real interesting. They have a definition of a Christian worldview, or a biblical worldview, and here's what they mean by this. Do you believe that God is the creator of all things? That he is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent? If you can answer yes to that, that's the first question. The second one, do you believe that mankind is sinful by nature? Do you believe that forgiveness is found only in Christ by grace? Now this is really broad, right? Because even a Mormon could say yes to that and say, yes, forgiveness is by grace through Christ. They mean different things by that than we do, but they could answer yes to that. Then they ask this, do you believe that the Bible is true, reliable, and relevant? Not that it's inerrant. or infallible, but just that it's generally true, that it's reliable and relevant. Do you believe that moral truth is absolute or relative? If you say it's absolute, then that's considered a Christian worldview. And the final question, should we obey God? Are we obligated to obey God? And if you answer yes to that. So the culmination of those questions is how they define what a biblical worldview is. And I think a lot of non-Christians who are involved in cults like Mormonism or various things could answer these questions in the affirmative and end up being classified as having a biblical worldview. But with 81% of Americans saying they believe in God and 69% claiming to be Christian, 32% supposedly born again, only 4% hold this definition of a biblical worldview. 4%. In 2020, it was 9%, so it fell by over half over the course of COVID, basically, which is very interesting. If you narrow it down, you go, yeah, but what about the ones that are born again, according to the poll? Well, of those who are classified as born again, 13% have a biblical worldview. 13%. So this tells you that somebody who says they're a Christian, who even says, yes, I'm born again, 13% of them have a very basic worldview that might be biblical. This tells you there's a lot of evangelism that needs to happen in America, even in the churches of America. And if you look at this by age group, it gets even more disturbing. Of those who are 65 years and older, 8% have this biblical worldview. Of those between the ages of 50 and 64, it's 5%. You see where this trend is going. Of those between the ages of 30 and 50, it's 3%. And of those under the age of 30 in America, it's 1%. 1% under the age of 30 have this very basic biblical worldview. There's a ton of evangelism that is needed right here in America, right in our own backyard. So this is something that we absolutely need to be thinking about, that we need to be engaging in. Christ has commanded us If we love God and we love our neighbor, we should want to tell them about Christ. And it is clear from this data that the majority of those around us in the culture do not know the Lord. So how are we to do this? We're not going to get into the mechanics of evangelism right now. I want to talk primarily this morning about who we need to be to be those who would do the work of evangelism. Who do we need to be? Well, the first thing if we're going to tell people that they need to come to faith in Christ, obviously we need to be people of faith. We ourselves need to be believers. Those who don't love the Lord, have not repented and trusted in Christ, why would they tell other people about Christ? And if they did, they'd probably get it wrong. So we need to be people of faith. Not only that, but Hebrews 11, verse 6 says, without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him." So we need to actually believe. We need to be people who believe, who have faith. Romans chapter 14 verse 23 tells us that whatever is not from faith is sin. So think about that for a minute. Anything you do without faith is sinful. So it is possible to evangelize in a sinful way. If you're not doing it in faith, if you're not a believer, if you're not sharing the gospel with others in faith that A, God has told me to do this, this is his means of working in the world, this is actually effective, people will come to faith and repentance in Christ when they hear the gospel. If you're not going into this thing with faith, you could actually go out and seek to do evangelism and do it in a sinful way. Think about the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses, these various cults that send their people out door-to-door to evangelize for their religion, they're sinning as they're doing that because they're not doing it with faith in Christ. Remember the passage we read in James. We want to have a living faith. We want to have a faith that is not dead, that's just up in our heads and hasn't actually changed our hearts towards God, toward other people, so that we engage our hands in the work of evangelism. So we have to be people of faith. In 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 16, Paul again writing to the young Timothy as he's there leading this church in Ephesus tells him, Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this, you will save both yourself and those who hear you. So he's telling Timothy, yes, the doctrine is important. What you're preaching, what you're teaching, the message that you're sharing with people when you're doing this work of evangelism is important, but you need to take heed to yourself as well, to your own life. You need to make sure that you're walking the walk, that you're not being a hypocrite out there telling people to do one thing while you're doing something else. So we have to take heed to ourselves and to the message. We have to be people of faith if we're going to be effective evangelists. The second thing that we need to do as we think about the task of evangelism is we need to be people of prayer. This is God's work that he has commanded us to do. He has ordained the means by which we do it, that we speak the message of the gospel to others. But this is something, an activity that we should engage in in a very prayerful way. We should ask the Lord to be working in us and in those that we are sharing the gospel with. Consider what Paul says as he writes to the church in Colossae. He's never even met this church. He hasn't been there, but he sent them this letter. And as he's ending his letter, this is the one of the things that he says to them. He says, continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Meanwhile, praying also for us. So he's asking this other church to pray for himself and for those who are with him on his ministry team, that God would open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ. He's asking the church to pray for opportunities for Him to evangelize. And so that's one thing that we ought to be doing. We ought to be praying and asking the Lord for opportunities for us to share the gospel. Not just for ourselves even, but for all of us. Asking God for opportunities for everyone in our church to share the gospel. to speak the mystery of Christ. And when Paul talks about the mystery of Christ, he means the fact that the Gentiles are included in salvation. So he's asking them to pray that the Lord would provide opportunities for him to share the gospel with other people and so that's one of the things that we as a church need to do and I want to kind of encourage us all this coming year as we think about this task if each one of us would think of one person that we know a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker who's not a believer or maybe who claims to be a believer but is not in church on a regular basis or something of that nature if we could all think of one person and faithfully commit ourselves to pray for that person's salvation, to pray for opportunities to speak the gospel to them, and then to pray for each other that we would all have those sorts of opportunities to speak to those that we're praying for and those that we know. I think that would make a huge difference, not necessarily in the size of this congregation or anything, but a huge difference in our own hearts as we begin to pray for the salvation of others. It's hard to pray for someone to be saved, pray that God would rescue them from eternal damnation and bring them to faith in Christ. It's hard to pray for somebody like that and not love them. So, this would make a huge difference in our own hearts and how we love our neighbors and how we love the Lord if we began to earnestly and faithfully pray for someone's salvation. The third thing that we need to be as we think about the work of evangelism is that we need to be people of the word. We need to be people of faith, we need to be people of prayer, and we need to be people of the word. If you turn over to Romans chapter 10, this is Paul's sort of magnum opus that he's writing to the church in Rome, comprised of both Jews and Gentiles in this large capital city of the empire, and he's talking about how his own brothers, according to the flesh, the ethnic Israelites, need the gospel, how they need faith in Christ. And this is what he says then to the church in Rome, beginning in verse 14, Romans 10, 14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord who has believed our report. So then, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So Paul says, how are they supposed to believe or come to faith in Christ if they've never even heard of him? And how are they to hear unless someone tells them about Christ? And how is somebody supposed to tell them unless the churches get involved in sending people to proclaim this message of good tidings? And it's only by hearing about Christ that people come to faith, right? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So, as we think about doing the work of evangelism, we need to be people that are familiar with the Word of God. We know the message of the gospel. We know what it is that we're supposed to say to people. steeped in it and familiar with it. Good evangelism is knowing the gospel, believing the gospel, living the gospel, and speaking the gospel. It's just all about the message of Christ, about the gospel that we are to proclaim. I think about, and we'll talk about this in months to come as we continue this discussion about evangelism, but If you've not, I would encourage you to read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Even if you've read it before, read it again and pay special attention to the conversations that Pilgrim has with various people that he encounters during the course of his life. The story of his pilgrimage is really the story of a Christian's life through this world, heading towards our eternal home. And every person that he comes in contact with He asks them basically the same questions, believer and non-believer alike. How did you get into the way? What have you encountered since you've been in the way? He's asking him, how did you get saved? What has your life been like since you got saved? And when they give him an answer, if he realizes they didn't come in by the gate, meaning they didn't get saved by faith in Christ, Then he reprimands them. He instructs them about, listen, you've got to come in by the gate. You've got to get in by faith in Christ alone. That's the only way. Any other way, you're not actually in the way and you're not going to be welcomed at the Celestial City. So it's very interesting if you were to read that and pay attention to those conversations that he is having, the questions that he's asking. And it's interesting. that he's asking the same questions of believers and non-believers alike, and I'm convinced that for us, as we think about sharing the gospel with unbelievers, one of the best things we could do to prepare ourselves for that is to learn to share the gospel with each other, to learn to speak the gospel, to talk about the gospel with other Christians, so that we're familiar with it, we're comfortable talking about it, that were encouraged and excited to hear people's stories of faith and how they came to faith. And so, that is a good thing and we'll be talking about that more in the future. As we get ready to close here, I want to follow up with a verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 2. Paul here writing to this church, speaking about who we are to be as Christians. He says this, beginning in verse 14. So God is working through us. to spread abroad the knowledge of Christ everywhere that Christians go. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved. So among those who, to hear the gospel and are being saved by the Spirit of God, by faith in Christ, it's a pleasing aroma, a fragrance of Christ. But then he continues and says, and among those who are perishing, To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as from God we speak in the sight of God in Christ. not peddling the word of God, right? We're not selling insurance when we go to evangelize somebody. We're not putting a high-pressure sales pitch on them. We're not peddling the gospel. This is serious. We're doing this with sincerity. We're speaking in the sight of God as we share the gospel with others. So we should approach evangelism with a certain fear, a fear of the Lord before our eyes. Not a fear of men, but a fear of the Lord. And not with a cavalier or flippant attitude, but with a serious joyfulness. It's a pleasing aroma to those who are being saved, but we have to be aware of the fact that we are speaking in the sight of God. So we need to take it seriously. We need to know his word. We need to be prayerful about it and we need to keep a close watch on our own lives, on our own faith and walk as we share the gospel with others. Let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer.