Well, good morning and welcome to Christian Life Academy. And this morning is our fourth Sunday of the month. Being Christian Life Academy, our goal is to train and equip each other for the Christian life. And so the fourth Sunday of each month, we are looking at what we call practical theology. And that is we want to put the theology that we're learning into practice. So practical theology is the application of biblical theology, systematic theology, our historical understanding of the history of the church, and we want to put these things into practice in everyday Christian life. So what we want to do is we want to look at all the practices of the church as a body and as the Christian life as individuals, and we understand that everything that we do as believers, whether individually or together as a body, is undergirded by what we believe. And so, our goal here is ongoing reformation, that we would reflect on our current practices and bring them into alignment with what God has said in His words. So, when we are addressing issues of practical theology, we want to look at what we're doing and say, what are we supposed to be doing? How are we supposed to be doing it? And how are we supposed to respond? This is really where we're trying to equip ourselves to live as Christians. And the key emphasis there is on the word live, because we have a tendency to take in a lot of theology, a lot of teaching, but we don't want to just take it into our minds and not actually put it into practice. We want to act on what we're learning. That's the goal here. And so, recently, for the last three or four months, on the fourth Sunday, we have been looking at the subject of evangelism. And we all understand that we are supposed to be sharing our faith with unbelievers, proclaiming to them the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so we want to talk about evangelism, what it is, how we go about it, that sort of thing. So, just a quick review, what is evangelism? Well, evangelism is the proclamation of the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ by repentance and faith. Now that's a dense little sentence there with a lot of information in it. It's the proclamation of the gospel, right? So this means we have to speak, right? We have to actually use our words and for some of us that may be difficult. For others it may come more easily, but we have to use our words. The gospel is a message that must be spoken. It's good news, right? So that means, and we discussed this in one of our previous sessions, that when we are sharing the gospel with others, we should do so with joy, because it's good news, right? It's not somber, sad news. There is bad news that precedes the good news, but ultimately the gospel is good news, and so it's something that we should be joyful and rejoicing to share it with others. It's the good news of salvation. So this should be shared with two, we've discussed in the past, it should be shared in two sort of respects. One with honesty, You're a sinner in need of salvation, and it should be shared with urgency. There is salvation that you need to acquire, and if you don't, there are dire consequences. So, as we share the gospel, we should do so with joy, with honesty, and with urgency. And it's the good news of salvation. in Jesus Christ, right? His is the only name by which we may be saved. Christ is the central figure of human history. He is God, He is man, He is Savior, He is King. So as we're sharing the gospel, as we're doing evangelism, if we're not talking about Jesus, we're doing it wrong. Evangelism is about God and about Christ and what He has done. It's not necessarily about us. It involves our salvation, but it is all dependent upon Him. but it is salvation in Jesus Christ by repentance and faith. And so there must be a call for a response. Those who hear the gospel must respond with repentance and obedience to Christ as King and independence upon Him and faith. So this is what evangelism is, proclaiming with joy, with honesty, with urgency, the good news that there is salvation to be had in Christ by repentance and faith. So, this morning, this will be, I think, our next to last session on the subject of evangelism. And so this morning, I want to give us some tips on how to be better evangelists. We've talked about what evangelism is, what kind of people we need to be to evangelize. We've talked about some of the ways that we might go about it, different questions we can use to generate conversations with people. But this morning I want to give us some tips to be better evangelists, and these might not be what you were expecting. But I want to ask this question to begin with. If we were thinking about the subject of evangelism, and thinking that there are various ways that we can go about the practice of evangelism, of sharing our faith in Christ with others, So I'm not asking about whether or not we should evangelize, but I'm asking, the question is, what do you think the most important command we're given in Scripture is for healthy evangelism? So I'm not talking about like the Great Commission, that we are to go and proclaim the gospel. We know that. I'm saying, as we go to proclaim the gospel, how are we to do that? What is the most important instruction we're given in Scripture regarding how to be a healthy evangelist? It may not be what you would expect, but let's turn to John chapter 13. John chapter 13, Christ is speaking to his disciples. And we'll pick it up in verse 31. John chapter 13, verse 31. So when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him immediately. Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, where I am going, you cannot come. So now I say to you, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." I want to suggest to you that this is one of two of the most important constructions or commandments we're given regarding becoming healthy evangelists, is that we learn to love one another. Jesus says, as I have loved you, so you are to love one another. How did Christ love us? He loved us sacrificially, right? He gave himself for us. He died in our place as a substitute. So, our love for one another is costly. It's sacrificial love. It means laying down our lives, in a sense, for one another. And he says, by this, the fact that we love one another in the same way that he loved us, all will know that you are my disciples. So if we go out and we proclaim the gospel with our words, and we're not loving one another as believers, is the world going to believe the words that we're speaking? They're going to go, well, you're saying this, but your actions are showing that you're not really his disciples. So now we've become hypocrites. We're proclaiming a gospel, but we said we needed to proclaim it with honesty. Honesty about the fact that people are sinners in need of salvation, but we also need to proclaim it with honesty that we really believe what we're saying. And the primary way that they'll see that we believe what we're saying is that we love one another as believers. In John chapter one, if we flip back to John chapter one, In verse 14, it's a passage we're very familiar with, it says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, speaking of Christ. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me. And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." No one has seen God, right? So as we proclaim the gospel, people haven't seen God. But Christ came. Christ was the visual representation, right? He was the image of God, the perfect image of God was Christ. Well, John, the same John writing in his first letter in John chapter four, verse 12 says, no one has seen God at any time. Same language. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us. and his love has been perfected in us. What John is saying is no one has seen God, but if you want to make God known to people, if you want to make God visible to people, they see him when they see us loving one another as believers. And so our life together as a church and how we love one another, that proclaims the truth of the gospel, the truth of what we believe. Now if we turn over to John chapter 17, we get another element that goes with this. In John chapter 17, this is what we call often Christ's high priestly prayer. This is Jesus praying for his people, praying for us. He says in verse 20, I do not pray for these alone, that is the 12, but also for those who will believe in me through their words. He's praying for us. Here's what he prays in verse 21, that they all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me." So here Christ is praying for the unity of his body, for the unity of his church, and he says that that unity, when it's displayed before a watching world, will be a testimony to the world that Christ really is who he says he is, that he really did come from God, that he's not just some lunatic man claiming to be God, but that he really is who he says he is. So, what Christ has said here in the Gospel of John is that if the world is to believe that we honestly believe what we're saying, we have to love one another. And if the world is to believe that Christ really is who he said he is, then we have to be united as God's people, that we have to love one another and be in unity. Francis Schaeffer said this about these two passages and about this concept. He said, our love will not be perfect, but it must be substantial enough for the world to be able to observe or it does not fit into the structures of the verses in John 13 and 17. So our love for one another has to be substantial enough that the world can observe it, because that's what Jesus is saying here in these two passages. And then he goes on, and if the world does not observe this among the true Christians, the world has a right to make two awful judgments, which these verses indicate, that we are not Christians and that Christ was not sent by the Father. So if we don't love one another, if we're not in unity as believers, the world will come to the conclusion that we don't really believe what we're saying and that Christ is not really who he said he was. That's how important this is. And so, our proclamation of the gospel with our words is very important, right? The phrase that you'll sometimes hear, you know, preach the gospel when necessary, use words, that's entirely wrong. It's always necessary to use words. But at the same time, while our words make the gospel known, our life together as believers, as a church, proves that we actually believe what we're saying and that Christ is who he says he is. So the proclamation of the gospel makes the gospel known. Church life together proves that the gospel is true. So we are to love one another sacrificially as Christ loved us. This involves all of the one-anothers of the New Testament, all of these things that we're commanded to do throughout the New Testament to love one another. And these can only be done in the context of a local church. So my argument is that this idea of loving one another or being unified together as proof that the gospel is true and that we truly believe it has to come from our love for one another in a local church, not nebulously just the church in general. but concretely specific people in a specific context. If you just say, well, I love the church, generally speaking, universally speaking, people that you don't necessarily know and aren't in regular contact with, right? You don't really have to bear with those people if you're not with them regularly. You're not going to have to forgive them when they offend you because you're not around them often enough for that to happen. You're not going to have to be patient with them or help bear their burdens to give preference to them and to their desires over your own. You're not going to need to admonish them or to serve them or to submit to them, to comfort them in their in their grief, or to edify them, exhort them, or assemble with them. It's easy to say, oh I love the church, I love Christians, I love the body of Christ, when it's out there somewhere. But when it becomes real people that you're face to face with, that's when it becomes more difficult. And when we have to sacrificially learn to love each other as Christ loved us. So our life together in the local church involves all of these one another's of the New Testament. This is one of the problems, I will say, with many self-proclaimed evangelists is that they claim to love the church and yet they're not actually connected to a local body of believers where they're actually loving real people in real life face to face on a regular basis. People who they are offending and are offending them where forgiveness has to be offered and They have to bear with, it's very easy to say, oh I love the church, when you're not actually part of a church. That's not real love, that's pretending to love the church. So to be a good, healthy, biblical evangelist, you must love the church, but you must love a church, not abstractly, but concretely. Real people, real relationships, real problems, real love. I want to encourage you this morning that I think that as Paul writes his letters to the churches, sometimes he says to them, you're doing a great job of this. I just want to encourage you to do it more. And so that's kind of the tone that I want to convey to you this morning is I think that we have done a fairly good job of this, I feel like. I sense a lot of love and patience and unity in our body, and I'm encouraged by that, and I want you to be encouraged by that, and I want to exhort us to continue to not become complacent in that, but to seek to love one another even more. The church, the local church, should both proclaim and demonstrate the truth of the gospel, and so the local church, as a body, then should cultivate a culture of evangelism, right? Because this is our topic is evangelism. So as we're thinking about sharing the gospel, proclaiming the gospel as individuals, then what is the role of the church in that? Well, I'm saying that the role of the church is that it demonstrates the truth of the gospel by how we live our lives together, but what role does the church play in the actual process of evangelism? Well, the first thing I want to say is that it is not a program. Evangelism is not a program. We do not restructure the church around some program of evangelism. The proclamation of the gospel is built in. It is baked into the very nature of the local church. This is what we do. We proclaim the gospel. preaching and teaching the scripture should be central to what we're doing. And if we're preaching the scripture faithfully, we're going to be preaching Christ. We're going to be preaching the gospel on a regular basis. Because the gospel's not just for the unsaved, the gospel's for Christians as well. We need to be reminded of it regularly, reminded of the grace of God to us in Christ Jesus. And so the gospel is baked in to what the church does in all of its preaching and teaching. The gospel is built into the church when we gather as a body to sing, to sing praises to God. Why are we praising Him? We're praising Him because of what He has done for us in Christ Jesus. And so, not only are we preaching the gospel, we should be singing about the gospel, singing about Christ. and about His grace. When we pray together as a church, the gospel should be central to our prayers, right? We should be thanking God for what He has done for us, for the salvation of sinners. We should be pleading with Him for the salvation of sinners. We should be praying, demonstrating our dependence upon God and upon His grace by our prayers together. The ordinances of the church, baptism and the Lord's Supper, are visible demonstrations of the gospel of substitutionary atonement in the supper of our death, burial, and resurrection with Christ and baptism. Everything that the church does when we gather for worship together should be proclaiming the gospel in some way, and so the demonstration of the gospel is built into the acts of the church when we're gathered together. It's also built into the relationships that we have with one another as we go about church life together. I'm going to run through a couple of passages here, but in Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter four, Paul tells us at the end of the chapter in verse 32, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Well, that's at the heart of the gospel message, forgiveness from God in Christ by faith and repentance, we're then forgiven, right? So, Paul tells us that because of the gospel, because of what God has done for us in Christ to forgive us, We are therefore to forgive one another. This is the basis of our relationships with one another, that we forgive one another as God has forgiven us. Francis Schaeffer again commented and said that unforgiveness is the primary obstacle to genuine Christian community. If we don't forgive one another it really messes up our community, our fellowship together as believers. So forgiveness is central to our relationship together in the church. Flip over to Romans chapter 15 near the end of Paul's letter to the church in Rome. In Romans 15, he says in verse seven, therefore receive one another just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. So as we receive one another in hospitality and welcoming and fellowship with one another, we're supposed to do that learning from the example of how Christ has received us. He's forgiven us, and then he welcomes us to himself. And so we are to forgive one another and welcome one another into relationship. And then again, and back in John 13, that passage that we looked at originally, we are to love one another, just as Christ has loved us there in John 13, 34. And so the demonstration of the gospel is built into the things that we do as a church, but it's also built into our relationships with one another in the church. And so how do we connect this to the practice of evangelism? As we think about, we've had these discussions for the last several months about evangelism, about sharing the gospel, about how we can start conversations with co-workers or family members or people we meet on the street and how we can proclaim the gospel. What is the gospel? How do we share it with people? How do we connect this to the church? I would argue that personal evangelism, which is the term that we use quite a lot, that personal evangelism shouldn't remain personal. That evangelism really should become a team effort at some point. that as a church, we should have, A, the confidence in the centrality of the gospel in everything that we do as a church. That as we're sharing the gospel with unbelievers in the community, we should feel entirely comfortable inviting them to join us at church on Sunday morning as we fellowship or inviting them to join us just in fellowship with other church members as we go about our lives together throughout the week. We should have confidence in inviting them to come witness these relationships and witness our life together as a church because it demonstrates the truth of what we've been telling them. So as we share the gospel with people, we should at some point be inviting them to come and watch, come and witness our life together as a church. We should invite them to worship services, use special occasions as an opportunity to invite people, whether that, we know there's a baptism service upcoming, or a funeral, or a wedding, or a church picnic, or a fellowship of some kind. we should be confident to invite unbelievers to join us in these things knowing that, A, we've been sharing the gospel with them, they're going to hear that same gospel proclaimed again in the life of the church, and they're going to see it demonstrated in how we interact with one another and love one another, forgive one another. So our life together as a church can be used as part of our practice of evangelism. We share the gospel with people, we invite them to fellowship with us and with other church members so that they can hear the gospel from others and so that it can be demonstrated for them that it is true, that we truly believe what we're saying, that Christ really is who he said he was. So here are some tips to be a better evangelist. First of all, help us keep the gospel as the focus of church life and conversation. So there are two ways that you can go about that from the pew. One is, you know, if Paul or I teach or preach and you don't hear the gospel and what we've preached, come up to us afterwards and say, hey, You did a really good job expositing that sermon, but where was Christ? remind us that we need to be focused on that, remind us that we need to keep the gospel central to our teaching. And the second thing is, is that just the conversations that we have with one another, whether that's here in the fellowship hall or upstairs in the foyer or midweek when we gather or when we happen to run into each other at the store, is the gospel part of our conversation with one another? I was reading this week Bunyan's book, autobiography and talking about how he had been reading the scriptures and reading the gospel. And he was mentally understanding what he was reading. And he thought that he understood it. And then as he going about his work as a tinker, he ended up in this town and he heard two or three Christian women sitting on a front porch conversing with one another. And their conversation was about the gospel and about how it had changed their lives. And it was in that moment that it really became real to him and that he actually came to faith and came to salvation. He had read it, he had heard it in the scriptures, but then when he saw it demonstrated in the conversation of people outside the church building, outside the worship service, but two or three believers had gathered together and the topic of their conversation was the gospel. had a huge impact on him. And so help us do that. Help us. It's fine that we talk about our lives together, but the gospel should be part of our lives and part of our conversation. The second thing I would say to be a good evangelist is to take our church membership seriously. We are members together of the body of Christ and so we should take this seriously that we are the body of Christ and so we are to be unified together as his body. We are to forgive one another, receive one another, love one another as he has loved us. Fourthly, or thirdly, I'm sorry, is that we should consider how we might stir one another up. This is one of those one-anothers of the New Testament. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24, it tells us, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Well, if we are to love one another as Christ has loved us, Hebrews is telling us here that we need to give thought to that. Think about it. Consider it. How can we stir one another up to love even more? How can we stir one another up to love and good works? So put thought into that throughout the week. How can I stir up my brother or my sister to love Christ more, to love one another more, to do good works? How can we do that? So let's put thought into that. And then in the very next verse, in Hebrews 10, 25, it says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. So not only think about how we might stir one another up to love and to good works, but also make church attendance a priority, our assembling together with one another for exhortation, and encouragement. As we already read in Romans, we are to receive one another, but in Romans chapter 12 verse 10 it says, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor giving preference to one another. So be kind, affectionate, Don't insist on having your own way, but instead give preference to others in the church. Demonstrate our love for each other. Think about, how can I stir my brother or my sister up to love? How can I be more loving towards my brother and sister? How can I be kind and affectionate to them? In verse 10, it says, you know, giving preference to one another. So, defer to one another. Don't insist on having your own way. In verse 13, there in Romans chapter 12, verse 13 says, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. So, care for one another's needs. Show hospitality to each other. This is how we demonstrate our love for one another. This is how we become good evangelists, by not being hypocrites. We actually believe what we're saying when we tell people the gospel. There's forgiveness to be had in Christ. We demonstrate that by forgiving one another, by loving one another. Be quick to forgive. As I said, Francis Schaeffer said that unforgiveness is perhaps the greatest hindrance to Christian community. And then love one another. I want to turn over and just read 1 Corinthians chapter 13, a few verses here. This is a passage that is often read at weddings. And that's not inappropriate, but consider that this comes in between chapters 12 and chapter 14, where Paul is talking about spiritual gifts in the church. He's talking about how we live our lives together as a body. And so he speaks about gifts a little bit, but then he's telling us it doesn't matter what gift you have if you're not loving one another in the church. And so then he describes for us what love should look like. And this is, he's not describing love between a husband and a wife, although this certainly applies, but he's describing love in the church. And he says at the beginning in verse four, love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. This is supposed to be a description of what our life together as believers looks like. That we love one another as Christ has loved us and that our love would look like this. That we're not behaving rudely to one another, that we're forgiving one another, that we're kind, we're not envying, we're not puffed up and arrogant trying to call attention to ourselves, but we're deferring to one another, that we're not seeking our own benefit but the benefit of others, that we're thinking the best of each other rather than thinking evil, that we're rejoicing in the truth together. And so Paul tells us in Romans, we're to consider how we might stir one another up to love. So consider, how can I stir up my brother or sister to behave in this way? How can I stir them up to rejoice in the truth? Well, partly that's going to be rejoicing in the truth yourself. speaking the truth to one another, as I said, making the gospel central to our conversations, bearing with one another, forgiving one another. So as we think about this topic of evangelism and sharing the gospel with the unsaved, how we live our lives together as a church is vitally important to that. Because if we go out into the world and we say, here's the gospel message, here's the good news of forgiveness in Christ, and then we don't act like we believe it, When they see that, why would they believe it if it looks like we don't? So if we're going to be good evangelists, we need to really believe what we're saying. There's forgiveness, there's being received by God, and we demonstrate that by how we live our lives together as a body. So being a good evangelist means being a good churchman. It means loving one another. And so, this is what I want us to see as far as our gospel proclamation is proved to be true, and that we believe it, and that Christ is who he said he is by our life together as a church. Next month we will finish this series by looking at what we do after we have shared the gospel with someone and they have a desire to respond to it. And then that will be the close of this and we'll move on to another topic. But that's it for this morning. Let's close in a word of prayer.