It really describes, I think in a very helpful way, who we are, we Christians, who we are, and in the light of that, what it is that we're called to do. And I want to use that as a kind of a jumping off place for our thinking. And as we properly understand who we are as men and women redeemed in Jesus Christ, there's an immediate, almost reflex action.

Who we are leads to what we're all about. just as was true for Jesus. It's very interesting. You remember at the very beginning, not the very beginning, but early on in his ministry, he came to a critical turning point at Caesarea Philippi, and he asked the disciples, who do men say that I am?

You remember? And they gave a variety of answers, and then who do you say that I am? And Peter says, the Christ, Son of the living God. And it says from that moment, Jesus began to teach them that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, eventually be crucified.

From who he is to what he's about. From who he is to immediately what he's about. Now you've seen who I am, let me tell you what my ministry is, what I'm called of the Father to do. And in a similar way, the passage that we're going to look at in just a moment describes us. And as soon as we see who we are, there's an immediate implication what we're called to do as well.

But I want to back up and take a look by way of background at the book of Hosea in the Old Testament.

It's toward the end of the Old Testament, just before Joel, which is just before Amos, that's just before Obadiah, okay, or you can come at it the other way. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea.

You know, everybody got that? Find Daniel and turn right.

Hosea, can you see?

Hosea is a very, very strange book and one that you don't hear taught about or preached about very much, partly because it's probably been considerably mutilated in being handed on down to us. It has the appearance of some destruction within it, so that it's hard to tell where a given passage leaves off and another one begins, but more especially because the subject matter of the book is so very, very difficult to deal with.

And in brief, what we have here is a prophet who was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, who lived, in other words, during the time of Jeroboam, which was toward the end of the kingdom of Israel, the northern kingdom of Israel, which you'll remember was destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.

And Hosea had the same message that Isaiah had and all the other prophets who were speaking about the inevitable certain punishment that was coming upon God's people if they didn't hurry up and repent. They were compromised all over the place. They had made alliances with foreign powers who knew not God. They were trusting in military might rather than in the strength of the Lord. There was sexual immorality running rampant. Justice had gone down the tubes. They were not treating their servants the way God had explicitly told them to. Their economic laws had completely gone awry and so on.

And Hosea's message was the same as all the other prophets, that God is not going to allow this to go on indefinitely. But the peculiar way in which Hosea was called to give that message was by going out and enacting, living out a kind of enacted parable.

And the parable was that he was commanded by God to go and take to himself a wife who was a prostitute, and fathered children by her. Her name was Gomer. And it's just a wrenching story, as you remember, that the standard in Old Testament Israel for prostitution was what? Stone her to death. Stone her to death.

And here's a prophet called of God to go and embrace her to himself. And repeatedly, she proves faithless. to him. And he repeatedly is sent back to take her back again. And you can just imagine the anguish in Hosea's mind and heart as he's trying to live that one out. And everybody is looking at this and saying, what in the world is he trying to do?

Of course, what's being shown here is the faithfulness of God and the faithlessness of his people Israel. Gomer represents the bride of Yahweh continually giving herself to everybody else. But the reason for going into all this, we find in verse 6 of chapter 1. Of the children that Hosea fathered by Gomer, there were two with some very strange names. A daughter that we read about in verse 6. She conceived again and bore a daughter, and the Lord said to him, Call her name not pitied.

for I will no more have pity on the house of Israel to forgive them at all. What a harsh word.

Sent you to marry this woman,

father children by her, here's your daughter, and give her the name not pitied for I will not have pity on the house of Israel at all anymore. Then we read down in verse 9, She had a son following the birth of this daughter, and the Lord said, Call his name not my people, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

As strong and harsh a word as you would want to find anywhere in the Old Testament.

The remarkable thing about the book, however, is that having pronounced this kind of final word, we immediately find God's heart melting for them taking back what he's just said. And so we read in chapter 2, well, let's read the whole of that last paragraph. Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered.

And in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, it shall be said to them, sons of the living God.

Where it was said, you are not my people, It shall be said, sons of the living God, welcomed back into his family. And the people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brother, my people,

and to your sister, she has obtained pity. Say to your brother who was not my people, say to him, my people. Say to your sister who was not pitied, she has obtained pity. This is exactly what we see over and over in Isaiah and over and over in Jeremiah. God pronouncing this incredible, seemingly final word of judgment.

Okay, guys, it's all over. And then his heart melting and saying, Yet even now, if you would only repent, even now, I welcome you back. And so there's a poignant note that runs through this book as Hosea has to live with the anguish of this faithless woman and yet repeatedly welcomes her back. And it finally does end happily.

I just want to look at one other verse before we leave Hosea. Chapter 2.19, this is the Lord speaking. And he says, and I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. So this very, very strong word of condemnation and rejection, and yet he welcomes them back.

He says there will be a day of restoration.

Of course, we could spend the night just on that, because I believe we're seeing the beginnings of the fulfillment of that very thing. Never, never until the present generation have these words been really true. And yet we're seeing the people of Israel and the people of Judah regathered in their own place and in the very place where God himself pronounced, you are not my people. Do you know that as of right now, this generation, there are for the first time since the first century, a higher percentage of Jews receiving Jesus as Messiah than there are Gentiles.

That's really exciting, isn't it? It's really exciting.

But I want just to use that as background now. That's just going to illuminate the passage in 1 Peter, if you'd turn with me to that. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verses 9 and 10.

1 Peter 2, 9 and 10.

And Peter's been talking here about being a living temple, living stones in a living temple built upon the foundation stone of Jesus Christ. And then he says, verse 9, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness, into his marvelous light. Once you were no people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy or pity, but now you have received mercy. You see what he's doing? Very deliberately. He's saying what was true in Hosea's generation in a very specific way about the people of Israel is true more generally of all of us who would name the name of Christ. Once you were no people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received any mercy, now you have received mercy. I want us just to look at the five things that he says about who we are. I think as we begin to see who we are, it really entails the whole of the gospel in a marvelous way. I'm starting at the end then and working backward. Number one, a people who were not God's people. A people who were not God's people, but who have become God's people. Immediately that puts us on notice. Not everybody apparently belongs to God.

There's a sentimentality throughout the land that would say, if there's a God, then surely everybody is his child. Now, I'm not sure there is, but if there is, then the fatherhood of God The brotherhood of man go together. All people are God's people. No, sir.

No, sir, I'm sorry. I wish it were so. Once you were no people, but now you have become something which in no way you could have become apart from the grace of Jesus Christ. You have become God's people. You've become members of his family. You've become members of his household. You've been engrafted into the tree, if you will.

The book of John begins with the words that Jesus Christ came to his own, and they received him not.

But, verse 12, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become the children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

Came to his own, they didn't receive him, but to those who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become the children of god he doesn't give power to become what you already are and we've got to really get that very clearly in our minds he doesn't give power to become what you already are when jesus said i'm come that you might have life he didn't come to give us something that we already have came to give us what we sorely lacked the life of god to become members of god's family. That's number one. We're a people who were not God's people, but we've become his people. Number two, a people who deserved and got no mercy,

but who now have obtained mercy.

Word mercy implies guilt.

If you've been just lovely as can be to me and I reciprocate, that's not mercy. that's repayment but if you've been an absolute wretch if you've robbed my money and slandered my name and slept with my wife and then i extend love to you that's mercy he says once you had received no mercy but now you have received mercy okay so there's a guiltiness there's a guilt ladenness here. We're a people who have obtained mercy. Back up to the beginning of the verse, he says, you're a chosen race. A chosen race. And what he's deliberately doing in these two verses is applying to the whole of the Christian community the fulfillment of the calling of Israel.

We've entered into its chosenness. You are a chosen race. And I want to just hold my finger here and go back to Deuteronomy chapter 10.

Deuteronomy chapter 10. The chosenness of Israel, I think, has been misunderstood by both Jews and Gentiles almost from the beginning. The chosenness of Israel was not intended by God as something for them to clutch exclusively to themselves.

And it was not because they were so marvelous a people. And in Deuteronomy 10, the Lord really, I take it, this is almost tongue-in-cheek, but he really chides his people and he says, verse 5, not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess the land going into the promised land but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

In other words, you're bad but they're even worse, you see so I'll use the bad to drive out the worse.

And that he may confirm the word which the Lord swore to your fathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. It's not because you deserve it, but because something has to be done about them, and, more especially, because the Lord is faithful to his promise.

Then he goes on to say, Know therefore that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.

And it's almost as if the Lord is saying, I've chosen you, because if I can do something with you, There's hope for anybody.

And he really belabors that for about three chapters here. Same thing is true of us. All the way back to the very beginning of the story, the calling of Abraham. Genesis 12 and again in 15 and 22 and so on. When the Lord called Abraham, he said, it was that through you all the nations of the world might be blessed. The chosenness of the Jews is that they might be a blessing, a vehicle of God's blessing, a witness people to the rest of the nations of the world.

Not because you've earned it,

but because out of my mercy I've chosen you to lavish my love upon you that the rest of the world may see that I'm a God of lavish love.

Israel almost totally misunderstood that from word one. Took our chosenness, you see, as we're so great.

and God had to deal very sternly with them for that but here Peter picks up on this and says we Christians are a chosen race and we enter into that very same spirit of chosenness not because we've earned it exactly the opposite we deserve no mercy

but because God is merciful and that in showering his mercy upon us we might be instruments of that same mercy and that same love to the rest of the world. We have entered into the calling of Israel.

If we under the blessing, we must share in the responsibility that accompanies it.

Fourthly, a holy nation. A holy nation. In light of everything we've seen so far, It's clearly not that they had achieved holiness in and of themselves.

But you have been made holy by the grace of God. He has proclaimed you holy. He has set you aside and washed you in the blood of the Lamb, if you will. He has taken away your sins from you. By his grace, they've been separated as far as the east is from the west. And he has made you a holy nation.

Peter's saying the Christian community is in fact a nation now we may have Americans and Frenchmen and Englishmen and Germans and Swedes Russians and so on but we have a nationhood where he is king that transcends all of those geographical barriers and our allegiance to each other is higher than our allegiance to the people who we happen to be born alongside of He says, I've made you a holy nation, a sanctified, if you will, nation.

I've made you clean by my grace. A royal priesthood, fifthly. A royal priesthood. Of course, we've seen over and over again, especially in the book of Hebrews, that Jesus Christ is our great high priest. And he doesn't share that priesthood with anybody in a final sense. but in a more general way we enter into a ministry of reconciliation.

That's what priesthood is a ministry of reconciliation presenting sinful men to holy God and representing holy God to sinful men. We have a mediatorial role not the mediatorial role that's Jesus but we as his ambassadors represent him to the world. It says, you have been made into a priesthood people, a royal priesthood.

You've been given a ministry of reconciliation. And then finally again, God's own people. If you're reading in the RSV, there's a footnote on that. It's more literally translated, a people for his possession. A people for God's possession. So he's not simply reiterating the same point. This is slightly different. A people for his possession.

You belong to him. It's not just that you've been given the grace to enter his family,

but you've come under his authority, his lordship. I remember Paul's comment to 1 Corinthians 6. You've been bought with a price. You are not your own.

So these six things then Peter uses to describe who we are. who are people who were not God's people but who have become his people, a people who deserve no mercy, a people who were sinful and guilty but to whom God has extended mercy, a people chosen not because we deserved it but because in extending his mercy to us he wants us to be vehicles of that mercy to the world, a holy nation, people who have been sanctified by the blood and the cross of Jesus Christ, a people called to a priesthood ministry, a ministry of reconciliation.

And finally, a people that God owns and possesses, a people under lordship. That's who we are. You see what I mean in saying that in understanding who we are, it entails the whole of the gospel.

There are people who don't understand who they are in Jesus Christ. They think that they've joined a club. you know or it's the it's the fashionable thing to do or at least it was at one point but these are kind of this is what we do there are other people who join the Buddhist club or the Hindu club or the Shinto club but this is our group

total misunderstanding of who we're called to be in Jesus Christ and what really is at stake this is who we are and it entails the gospel now the point of all of this is that immediately you begin to understand who you are, there's a direct reflex implication for what you're called to do. In the midst of that, he says, this is what you're called to do, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

This is why he's chosen you. This is why He's sanctified you. This is why He's saved you. This is why He's given mercy. This is why He's invited you to be His people.

That you might declare the wonderful deeds, the marvelous deeds of Him who has called you out of darkness into light.

So I want to suggest to you

that the principal reason for the church's existence is the work of evangelism. I don't know if you've ever heard that or thought that before. Now, there are lots and lots of other things that go with it. But I want to suggest to you that the principal reason for the church's existence is the work of evangelism. I have saved you. I have called you. I have chosen you. I have sanctified you that I might send you to declare who I am and what I've done. I find this paper by Wayne Schwab a very, very helpful summary, and I commend it to you.

I want to call your attention to points one and two.

Everything the church does is not evangelism.

Evangelism is an identifiable, unique activity. It centers in the presentation of Jesus Christ, encounter with him, and the response of faith, commitment to him, and responsible membership in his church. Liturgy, education, social ministry may have evangelistic elements, but they are not evangelism.

Evangelism used to be a very dirty word in the Episcopal Church. I think it comes from a wrong view of the sacraments. For too long, the assumption seems to have been abroad that you become a Christian by being baptized, right and so there's no reason for evangelism because we basically baptize babies that's a total misunderstanding of baptism and evangelism both but now somehow in the last 10 years or so the pendulum has swung what used to be a dirty word has now become almost the in thing and everybody's talking about evangelism and what we find happening is that they want to name everything evangelism. So people who are out there doing social action, they call that, this is my evangelism.

People who are doing liturgy, this is evangelism. Worship is evangelism. Giving money to the poor is evangelism. It's not. It's not. Which is not to say that those other things are unimportant.

They're terribly important and God calls them to us. But he calls us to them. But he also calls us to a specific,

identifiable activity. Schwab defines it this way.

presenting Jesus Christ with a response of faith in him. It goes on to say, evangelism in point two is not optional. When gathered, the church has three tasks. Worship, proclamation of the word and celebration of the sacraments. Education and mutual care. Fellowship, pastoral care.

Worship, education, care. when gathered worship God's people are called to sing his praises and be a blessing to him education nurture building up the saints equipping them causing them to get deep in Jesus Christ and fellowship care for one another when scattered he goes on in the world the church has three tasks ministry to persons in need cup of cold water to the thirsty, social justice, the improvement of institutions and structures, and evangelism.

I find that a helpful summary. When gathered, three things, worship, education, fellowship. When scattered, when reaching out, three things, ministry to the needy, social justice, and evangelism.

But, again, I contend that of all those things, the principle of raison d'etre for the church's existence is evangelism. This is why I've saved you, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you. Jesus says, last words to his disciples as he ascends into heaven, you shall be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. first in Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

So that somebody has well said that the Church of Jesus Christ is the only institution in the world that exists primarily for the sake of those outside it. Primarily. Worship is absolutely critical, but God has the angels in heaven worshiping him. He has nobody else to declare his deeds but his people.

What is evangelism?

the Archbishop of Canterbury held a commission in 1918

and amongst other things what came out of it was this definition

to evangelize is so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit that men shall come to put their trust in God through him to accept him as their savior and serve him as their king in the fellowship of his church. Isn't that a wonderful statement?

To evangelize is so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit that men shall come to put their trust in God through him to accept him as their savior and serve him as their king in the fellowship of his church.

That came over almost intact to our general convention in 1973, and at the top of this page, Schwab quotes that. Evangelism is the presentation of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit in such ways that persons may be led to believe in him as Savior and follow him as Lord within the fellowship of his church. That's what evangelism is. It is not social action, though that's important.

It is not worship, though that's important. It's not education, etc. It is the presentation of Jesus Christ and the power of the Spirit in a way that men will come to put their trust in God through him, come to know him as Savior and Lord and serve him as King in the fellowship of his church.

Bob Hall, not our bishop and not the Bob Hall in Arlington, but the Bob Hall who was at the Episcopal Center for Evangelism and who has become the dean of the cathedral out in Oklahoma, wrote a book, Evangelism in the Episcopal Church, and he says this, Evangelism is an activity designed to induce human beings to give their allegiance to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Then he goes on to say, I have seen quite sincere churchmen admit that they really don't know what people mean when they say that we are to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

But if they don't know this, then the basic promises of baptism and confirmation are empty.

That's not to deny the significance or the importance of baptism or confirmation, or that it can be fulfilled. But I think that's a terribly important statement. Not to understand what it is to accept the Lord Jesus as Savior and Lord is to empty that commitment of its power.

i've used the example a couple of times and some of you may have heard me use this i think it's it's deliberately shocking but it's helpful

people come and stand before me and in the company of their friends and relatives on their wedding day and they make promises to each other

and by the authority both of church and state i end up pronouncing them husband and wife

but you know if they don't consummate their wedding

what will be declared by both church and state is not that there's a divorce going on here but an annulment there literally was no marriage now in spite of the fact that they made promises and in spite of the fact that I in the name of God pronounce them husband and wife, both church law and state law would say there was no marriage. There never was one if it's not consummated. I think that's a dramatic way of suggesting that our promises in baptism need to be consummated, need to be fulfilled.

And that's a matter of simple putting your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, understanding his grace and putting your trust in it. One other thing I want to say. Jim Packer, Dr. James I. Packer, in Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, wrote this, evangelizing is not simply a matter of teaching and instructing and imparting information to the mind.

There is more to it than that. Evangelizing includes the endeavor to elicit a response to the truth taught. It is communication with a view to conversion. It is a matter not merely of informing, but also of inviting. It is an attempt to gain or win or catch our fellow men for Christ. Our Lord depicts it as fisherman's work. Going out with something attractive to allure the person who may not really want to, but who in fact needs to be caught, and reeling it in.

Reeling it in. Catching men. Follow me, and I'll show you how to catch men for the sake of the kingdom. This is what we're talking about, and I want us to get our terms clear at the beginning. I want us to understand who we are, who we're called to be in Jesus Christ, and then immediately what that implies about what we're to do.

a matter of reaching out and seeking to win men for Christ and bring them from a kind of an empty superficial formal churchmanship into a living vital personal relationship with Christ to know him personally to know our sins are forgiven by his grace to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I'm going to heaven when I die and to know that it's not a matter of my having earned it, but God having given it.

I'd include at least those four elements. Come to know Jesus Christ in a personal way. All the difference in the world between knowing about somebody and knowing that person. All the difference in the world. If you've never met my wife, I could stand here and describe her for the next week and a half. And you might begin to get some idea of what she's like, but you still don't know her.

But isn't it remarkable? I go over next door and say, come on over, honey. And I introduce her to you, and within a matter of seconds, a relationship begins. All this information, piles and piles and piles of information, didn't help you know her personally. And yet just a few moments with her, on a personal level, and a relationship begins.

Evangelism is bringing somebody from a vague, empty, superficial churchmanship into a personal relationship with Christ where we know Him personally. I still need to know about Him. I need to learn the truth, the facts. But I need essentially to know Him to as many as received Him, welcomed Him to them.

Knowing Christ personally, knowing secondly that my sins are forgiven, which in turn implies that I know some.

Miserable offenders. Yep, Lord, there sure are some here.

No, I'm a miserable offender. I know I'm a sinner in the sight of Holy God and there's nothing I can do about it. Vivid illustration. If you took a couple of couches and allowed them to well, let's do it a different way.

Let's just imagine a great chasm It's a great chasm, all right? Tremendous deep valley in between two plateaus. Let's say they're about 100 feet apart. Now you line up everybody in the whole wide world on one side of that chasm. You say, all you've got to do is jump across. That's all you've got to do. That's salvation over there. Let's start jumping.

Now what are we going to see? We're going to see some people who are scared to death and aren't even going to make the try. we're going to see some people who give it all they've got and they go about a foot and a half

right and then you're going to see a few olympic champions anybody know what the olympic record is for the broad jump it's about 28 29 feet now there's a whale of a difference between the guy who doesn't even try and a guy who goes 30 feet.

But the goal was to get to the other side.

Sorry about that.

There's a whale of a difference, humanly speaking,

between an Adolf Hitler and an Albert Schweitzer.

But the goal was to get to the other side.

And even Schweitzer doesn't make it by himself.

God's standard is absolute holiness, absolute perfection. If you want to try to walk into heaven on your own strength, he's going to expect that of you.

Yeah, I'm a miserable offender. And I know my sins have been forgiven.

Thirdly, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that when I die, I'm going to heaven. And that's not a statement of presumption, although many people would take it as such. But who are you to say you're going to heaven? Well, I've just admitted to you that I know perfectly well that I didn't earn it, but it was a gift to me. And God's will is that we know that we're going to heaven. Not that we hope so, think so, I'm working on it, maybe if things work out okay, I'll make it. But that we know, John says in his first letter,

he says,

and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding to know Him who is true and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. He says, these things are written that you may know that you have fellowship with Christ. It says at the end of his gospel, there are many other things which Jesus did, but these things are written that you may know that Jesus is the Christ, and in knowing that, have eternal life.

And fourthly, that I know that this is by God's grace. I know that this is by God's grace. That I know what grace means. Free, unmerited favor. God has bestowed a blessing on me just because that's the way he is. He loves me. I can't figure out why in the world he does. Except that that's the way he is. He's a loving father.

Now a couple of distinctions here.

Evangelism is not witnessing.

We've defined evangelism. It's so presenting Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that men may come to know and trust and love Him.

Presenting Jesus Christ.

And finally, the saving facts, the saving truths of what He did 2,000 years ago.

the facts of the gospel.

Witnessing is a matter of giving personal testimony of what has happened to me. And he says, you shall be my witnesses. That's not an option. Everybody's called to be a witness. But witnessing is not quite the same thing as evangelizing. And I'd put it this way. Witness may be a kind of a pre-evangelism.

Prepare the way for evangelism. It might be the appetizer, if you like. It might tantalize people to become hungry for something more. The point I'm making is that nobody has ever yet been saved by witness.

we're saved by Jesus Christ, and we're saved by coming to know and understand and believe and trust in the truth of the gospel. Put it another way, nobody's ever going to be saved by what Jesus Christ did for me personally. They're going to be saved by what Jesus Christ did for them, right, on a cross. And there's a big confusion here. People tend to think that they are evangelizing when what they're doing is saying, You know, I used to be such a messed up person.

My marriage was going to hell in a bucket. My job was falling apart. You know, I was neurotic. I was sick. And then all of a sudden I met Jesus and things began getting better.

Well, that's marvelous. And we praise God for that. But that's not evangelism. Now, that may be the bait. You see, because the guy can identify with that. And he said, boy, that's fantastic. You've just described me. And I want to know what happened to you. But we need to be able to go beyond the kind of personal internal experience to talking about the facts of the gospel.

Because otherwise all I'm sharing with somebody is my trip. And I might have been helped by going to the head shrinker or by taking some kind of medicine or by joining a therapy group. Any one of those things might have been of help to me on a personal level and say, well, that's great. You know, I'm glad it helped you. You know, that's your bag, but here's mine. So we want to move from the level of personal witness back to the facts of the gospel and be able to share that truth.

Witnessing, as I say, may be pre-evangelism. It whets the appetite or change the image. Jesus says you're the salt of the earth and whatever else salt does, it makes people thirsty. Our witness is to make them thirsty. but then we've got to be able to move on and really share the main course or the living water now in making that distinction between witnessing and evangelism I also want to acknowledge that not everybody is called to be an evangelist evangelism is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit some are called to be apostles and some to be prophets some to be teachers and some to be evangelists It's one of the gifts when God really develops it as a ministry, a service gift.

But, but there is a further word here in 1 Peter. Chapter 3 and verse 15.

Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to an account for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and reverence, and keep your conscience clear so that when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. Not everybody's called to be an evangelist, a Billy Graham or even a Billy Hutchinson.

One is about all we can take.

A Billy Graham.

everybody is called to be ready to articulate, to be ready to share. And there's a presumption here. Be prepared to make a defense or to give an answer, King James, to give an answer for the hope that is within you. That presupposes people are going to be asking something. And all over the place you hear people saying, well, I'm not a verbal person. I don't know how to talk to people.

I just witness by my life. Okay? Well, praise God, if your life is so spectacular

that it's forcing people to raise the question, what is it about you? Now, if that's happening with some regularity, then I'd say, praise God, you're witnessing with your life.

Be prepared to give a defense, to make an answer to those who ask you, what's different, what have you got? How come you're always happy, even when things are going badly? maybe if you're not being asked that you need to re-examine some things

so I want to suggest to you that even if you don't believe at least you don't believe yet that God has called you to an ongoing ministry of evangelism or has gifted you in a very special way as he has some individuals within the body of Christ he nonetheless says it's part of your responsibility to be a witness and to be prepared to go beyond witnessing and share the gospel.

Now, just quickly,

three attitudes that will not be particularly helpful.

One, I'm right

and you're wrong.

In one sense, we do believe that about ourselves at one level, but so does everybody else.

If you believe anything, you believe you're right in believing it or else you don't believe it. But in a deeper sense, there needs to be that humility coming through. You're wrong and I'm wrong, but Jesus Christ has begun to make me right.

We don't want to project a holier-than-thou attitude. And I think when people finally begin to get bold enough to try to share the gospel with their friends, it can slop over into a, boy, do I have it all together, and you poor, miserable slob.

You know, let's remember our general confession. We've erred and strayed like lost sheep, followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, left undone the things that we should have done, done the things we shouldn't have done, and there is no health in us but thou.

We don't care about winning an argument. We care about winning men.

Secondly, earning points with God.

You know, look at me, God.

And even more than that, hey, everybody else, look at me. Do you know I won seven people to the Lord last month?

There's an awful lot of so-called evangelism going on that's just scalp hunting.

And I know from personal testimony about it, I could give you any number of people who have said, I said yes to him and I prayed the prayer just to get rid of him.

there are organizations that go out and hit the beaches at Easter time and try to corral college students and they go up and down the beaches and they claim 50,000 conversions in one week no doubt God has used that in some lives, no doubt but also no doubt that there is a tremendous wastage and wreckage in setting people back We need to learn a sensitivity, how to share graciously and how to back off.

Jim Elliott, the missionary to the Ucka Indians who was killed about 20 years ago, made the comment, he said, we evangelicals in our fervor to produce new life more often produce abortions. So we're going with sensitivity,

not seeking to earn points and collect scalps. Paul says, I'm a debtor to every man. I'm a debtor to every man. I'm sharing something because if God in his mercy could love me and give me what I so totally don't deserve, and here's somebody else who needs it just as much as I do, then I'm compelled to share it with him. It's not a matter of increasing my stature. remember the parable that Jesus gave that after you've done everything you still say we're unworthy servants

and thirdly I've already alluded to this cramming it down somebody's throat is not a very helpful approach to evangelism you know I've got the answer and I'm going to shove it right down and you're going to just regurgitate it all over me

you know that phrase by D.M. Bailey evangelism is one beggar telling another where to find food. Okay?

But if he doesn't want to find food, we've got to be able to back off. And so we're going to explore a little bit more of that two weeks from tonight. How to know how far to come on and when to back off in sharing the gospel with our friends. What I'm saying in short is that I'm encouraging us to be much more aggressive than we've been.

Jesus has commissioned us to share his gospel. men and women about us are going to hell apart from knowing Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and yet we do so not in a spirit of arrogance and not in a spirit of collecting their scalps and not in a spirit of cramming it down their throat but with humility and out of a sense of compassion for them and with a sensitivity if we can develop that to know how far to come and how to back off so that the right attitude, finally, it would seem to me, is obedience to God, first and foremost.

It's not an option. He said, do it.

Secondly, a sharing of his concern for the lost.

The prayer of the founder of World Vision, Lord, break my heart with the things that break your heart.

Or you say you love your neighbor. Do you see him through the eyes of the Lord Jesus? Somebody who is worth coming and dying on a cross to save. And who needs that.

And thirdly, an overflowing thankfulness for what he's done for me.

Obedience, compassion, and thankfulness.

It's the right attitude. Or in a word, the right attitude is gratitude.

Now, I want to give you some homework. I warned you. I wrote that down on that paper.

I'm not going to grade it.

Or at least if I do, it doesn't determine anything final. Do we have an eraser somewhere here? I don't need it. Never mind. Let's write down four words.

God, Christ, man, and I mean that generically, ladies, human, kind, and response.

God, Christ, man, and response. And here's what I'd like you to do for next week. We're going to share these with each other in some way, but not, as I say, not really in a sense of grading. I'd like you to summarize the gospel in terms of these four words.

Here's how I'd like you to do it. I'd like you to come up with no more than three statements about each one of these key words. Maybe less than three, maybe one is enough, maybe two. No more than three statements about each of these words. I think these would be critical, pivotal words, and if we can understand these four words, we could express to somebody the gospel in using these four words. And that's what our task is going to be.

You could phrase it this way. Supposing you had five minutes to explain to somebody from another country who has never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, or even a friend of yours who's had only a superficial kind of a relationship to the church, you had five minutes to express to him, crystal clear, the gospel of Jesus Christ. What would you say? That's what we're really aiming at. And it would be more than, well, Jesus came into my life and made everything happy.

What would you say about God? What would you say about Christ? What would you say about man? What would you say about response?

No more than three statements about each of those four words no less than three scripture references to support each statement.

All right?

All right, let me say that one more time. No more than three sentences about each word. God is... God is...

God is... it is, all right? This, in your opinion, these are the most critical three things that you could say about who or what God is. This is the essence. This is the very nub, the heart and core of the thing. This is who God is. This is what God is. One, two, or three statements.

But for every statement you make, at least three scripture references that would support it, all right? So if you make one statement about God, you'll have at least three Bible references. If you make three, you'll have at Nine. All right? Everybody clear on the homework?

Okay? Now, you're not limited to three. You're not limited to three. If you want to go on and get four, five, six, seven, eight Bible verses that would make the same point. Okay? God is purple. All right? And we find that in 1st Fred 7.14,

and Hezekiah 42.9, right? And you understand what I'm saying, okay?

And we're going to share these. I'll share mine, all right? And I think the point is that there's not going to be merely one way to summarize this. We're going to have a certain amount of diversity amongst ourselves in exactly how we articulate it. But our goal is that in doing this exercise, We're going to come up with an outline.

And you're going to come out with an outline that is comfortable to you, that you can articulate in perhaps eight sentences or nine sentences the essence of the Christian gospel, but you're grounding it not just in your own brilliance, you see, but in the Word of God. Got it? Clear? Any question?

Okay. If you don't do your homework,

one extra year in purgatory.

All right. Let's stand and pray together.