All that stands between you and the last two verses is a sermon, and then we will get to sing them together! So wonderful to be with you. So enjoyed the music and the fellowship and the time with your pastor and some of the other pastors here as well, and staff. This is a wonderful church. We have many connections with people who have been in one place or the other, and RTS connections. I was just at the RTS faculty retreat in Atlanta, everyone, so all the campuses, and they had to say what church they went to, and I was maybe counting – “Christ Covenant.” “First Pres.” I think you won by just one or two! But it’s not a contest! So thank you for hosting me. It’s been a joy to worship with you.
Let’s pray as we come to God’s Word.
Gracious Heavenly Father, we come again and so we ask for Your help. My prayer is that of John the Baptist, that I might decrease and Christ would increase. Give me a humble heart to preach Your Word, and yet may there be an unction from the Holy Spirit and an authority that comes only from You. And give to these Your dear people ears to hear that they might be changed, perhaps that some might be saved, called, that we might be built up in our faith. We ask in Christ’s name, amen.
Our text this evening is also from the book of Acts, the very last chapter, and just the last two verses. Acts chapter 28, verses 30 and 31. Just to orient you, obviously it’s at the end of the book, you can see that, but if you see at the beginning of chapter 27, you’ll see the headings there. Paul sails for Rome, so he’s made his appeal before Felix and Festus and Agrippa and he wants to appeal his case to Caesar. He sails for Rome. There’s a storm; there’s a shipwreck. He ends up on Malta and he spends some time there and then he finally sails and he lands in Italy and he makes his way landward up to Rome. And there, he speaks to some of the leaders there. Then they hear him again and now we come, after all of this impetus, to make it to the heart of the empire, to Rome itself. We end the book of Acts this way:
“He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.”
This seems like a rather strange ending to the whole book. This is it. It’s sort of exciting and has a bit of finality to it, but you can’t help but wonder, “Where’s the rest of it? What happened? You finally made it to Rome! Did you get to see Caesar? Did you get to visit the church there? Did they send you on your way to Spain? Did they send out missionaries from there to the rest of the Roman empire? So now what, Paul? You were so desperate for this trial. Did you stand before Nero himself? Did his accusers from Jerusalem ever show up? Was he condemned? Was he killed? Was he released?” We are left with a lot of questions unanswered. We could use a little bit more of an ending, unlike, say, The Lord of the Rings movies which has seventeen different endings. You’re still watching another ending and another ending! It feels a little anticlimactic.
If you were watching Chariots of Fire and it ended with Eric Liddell just training for the 400m and the credits role and well – then what happened? Or if you are watching Return of the Jedi, the last Star Wars movie as far as I’m concerned, and you have Luke who is there and he’s facing the Emperor, and you’ve got a bunch of stuff with Ewoks and the Endor and you have all these things happening, and if it just said right there, “Luke is discussing with the Emperor…” role credits, end of story – what happened? What happened to you, Paul? Where did you go? It seems like a very strange ending, like Luke just ran out of – the paper assignment had so many words, he hit the word limit, and he said, “I’m done. I’m just turning this in the way it is.”
It seems like a strange ending, but I want to submit to you that it is a perfect ending. Perfect, as Luke has devised in his own mind for his own purposes, and also inspired by the Holy Spirit. This finishes the last third of the book. We sort of think of it in thirds. The first third you have Peter as more of the focus. Then you have the middle third where you have Paul on his missionary journeys. And then if you turn back to chapter 19, and look at verse 21, this introduces the last third of the book – 19:21. “Now after these events, Paul resolved in his spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia, go to Jerusalem saying, ‘After I have been there, I must also see Rome.’” Now he’s going to have some other places to go. You can see the heading – “A riot in Ephesus.” He’s going to go through Macedonia and Achaia. This is likely in this time period where he wrote the letter to the Romans, probably from Corinth, maybe around 57AD. He’s on his way to Jerusalem and then to Rome. So the rest of the book is following him on that journey. He goes to Jerusalem and he faces persecution and he’s arrested and then he wants to go to Rome and he goes up to Caesarea where there’s an imperial sort of palace and he faces there the different Roman officials, and he waits in prison there and then he’s sent on his way, and then a shipwreck and he finally makes it to Rome.
This is the point. It may seem sort of anticlimactic to us, but from 19:21 onward in the book, the question is, “Will Paul make it to Rome?” That’s the narrative. It’s not been so much a story about the apostle Paul, we’ll come back to that, but rather the story about, “Will Paul make it to the heart of the empire as he desired.” There was a promise in chapter 23 – “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome. That’s Acts 23:11. So the book really has been dealing with this question, in the last third of the book – “Will that happen?” Paul desired to go to Jerusalem to Rome and he was promised that just as he has borne witness in Jerusalem, he would eventually bear witness to Christ in Rome.
Also, remember in Luke’s introduction and then in the Gospel and then Luke’s introduction here in Acts, both of them are addressed to this “Most Excellent Theophilus.” The word “Theophilus” means “friend of God.” The fact that he is called “Most Excellent” makes us think that he is probably some high-ranking Roman official. He seems to have been either a new convert or an almost convert and part of what Acts in particular is trying to do is help convince someone like Theophilus, who might be in the very throes of the machinery of the Roman government, that the Christians and the Christian faith, which is seems perhaps he has professed, is not a bunch of rebel-rouser revolutionaries. That there is a way that they are – even though they may be eventually sowing seeds and have a subversive allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ – part of the apologetic in Acts and why Paul is insisting upon the rights of his citizenship is to help show to someone like Theophilus, “See, I am a Roman citizen. It is possible to have a dual citizenship – one on earth, one in heaven. It is possible to find these allegiances.” Now that’s not always the case in all countries at all times, but that’s part of what Paul is showing. And so it’s important for Paul’s apologetic that he ends up at Rome.
More importantly, that Paul ends up in Rome completes the table of contents for the book of Acts. So you probably know Acts 1:8. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” And we think about that sometimes as, “Well, that’s a good mission principle.” And you’re going to minister to people in Jerusalem who are near you and like you, and Judea, are like you but sort of around you, and Samaria, close to you but different from you, and then the ends of the earth. And while there may be some truth to that as a general sort of principle, that’s really not what Acts 1:8 is trying to reinforce. It is a very deliberate table of contents to show us what is going to happen in the rest of the book with the ministry of the Word.
If you’re back at chapter 1, just look at this. You can tell by even the headings in your Bible. Where are they in chapter 1? Well they’re waiting for the Holy Spirit, they’re in Jerusalem. And so chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – they’re in Jerusalem. And then, go to chapter 8, verse 1. “Saul approves of his execution,” Stephen, “and there arose on that day a great persecution against the church.” Where are they? In Jerusalem. And they were all scattered. Where? “Throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.” We see it again in verse 4. “Those who were scattered went about preaching the Word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.” Chapter 8 is following very intentionally on chapter 1 verse 8 to say they were in Jerusalem, now because of the persecution, they’re going to Judea and Samaria.
And then chapter 13. We referenced the text this morning. They’re in Antioch. Chapter 13 verse 2 and 3, “They set apart Saul and Barnabas for the ministry of the Word.” And they send them out, the first intentional sending out of missionaries, and by their reckoning, where are they going to go? They are going to go to the ends of the earth. You look at chapter 11, verse 19. “Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen, traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word to no one except the Jews.” So you see what’s happening there? They’re starting to spread but they’re still limited to the Jews. Then we come to chapter 13. Now there is going to be an intentional Gentile mission. Paul’s strategy will be to the Jew first and then to the Gentile, but he sees himself as an apostle to the Gentiles. He will start in the synagogue when they give him opportunity and he will preach then to the Gentiles. This is very deliberately, as Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit is writing this, telling us that the Gospel started in Jerusalem, literally went to Judea and Samaria, and now is going to the ends of the earth.
You say, “Well, look at these flags. They didn’t make it to most of these places represented here by these flags. Did they really make it to the ends of the earth?” Well, we don’t have to think that the Gospel made it to every tribe and language, tongue and nation. We know that’s not the case. We know that there are people groups yet to be reached and the mission continues; the mission continues as long as the promise continues. And Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” At the same time, in a provisional sense, there are passages in the New Testament to suggest that the apostles understood that the mission was being fulfilled to the nations. Think of Colossians 1:23 which said that the Gospel had been proclaimed in all the world. Or Romans 10:18, the voice of the preacher had gone to the ends of the world. Now this doesn’t mean that the apostles thought the Great Commission was just, “Check that box. We’re done with that.” But it means that they saw and understood within their lifetimes that the Gospel was going forth triumphantly to the ends of the earth. And for the world that they inhabited, Paul is a Roman citizen, to have the Gospel go to Rome and then from there, hopefully to Spain and to regions beyond was a fulfillment of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth.
You say, “Well that’s a little bit interesting. I see the table of contents there. What does this mean for us?” Let me give you three themes or three lessons which can summarize these two verses. In some ways they summarize the whole book of Acts. Number one, these two verses, this strange and perfect ending, tells us that the mission of the church is the mission of the Gospel. We talked about this this morning. In a world with so many needs, and in a country where we have the opportunity to address many, many concerns, we have a prosperity that is almost unimaginable for most people in human history, we must not forget the clear message from the book of Acts. Namely, that the heart of the mission is a clear message. The Lord Jesus Christ, Israel’s Messiah, our Lord and our Savior.
You can see, there are very deliberate book ends to Acts. So look at chapter 28. You’re open there, and we just read from verse 31. What is Paul doing? He is proclaiming the kingdom of God? We’ll go up a little bit earlier. Verse 23, “When they appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers from morning till evening. He expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God, trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets.” So what do we see here at the very end of the book? This is a book about the proclamation of the Gospel of the kingdom. Now if you kept your finger there at the end you go one more time to the very beginning of Acts, then you’ll notice the book ends as it begins. Verse 1, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day He was taken up. After he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen, He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 says and “ – doing what? “Speaking about the kingdom of God.”
You could even go farther and you could argue that this two-volume best seller, Luke and Acts, Luke sets up deliberately with a bookend in the whole two-volume, not just within Acts. Because Luke chapter 1, 32 and 33 – “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father, David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of His kingdom there will be no end.” That’s how Luke starts. Luke says, “I want to tell you the good news about Jesus, about the Messiah, the Savior to be born, the Son of God, and the kingdom that He brings, that comes with Him, that will never end.” And then he comes to the end of the story in Acts, and there you have Paul, once again “preaching boldly.” Don’t you like that word? “With all boldness.”
My definition of “boldness,” and I think it fits this text and the others in Acts, to speak or to preach “boldness” is to speak clearly in the face of fear. Boldness is not a personality type. It doesn’t mean that you have a loud decibel volume. It doesn’t mean you have to be an extrovert. It doesn’t mean you have to be brash and loud and in your face and an America, but I repeat myself – No! To be bold is to be clear in the face of fear when everything in you says, “Now is the time to speak vaguely, ambiguously about Jesus.” “How was your weekend?” “It was okay.” “What did you do?” “We went to church.” “Oh, what was that about?” “It was good. It was just some good spiritual time.” You’ve got an open door to say, “We learned again, as we do every Sunday, about Jesus who came to save us from our sins.” Paul spoke boldly in the face of fear.
Remember, too, look up at verse 16. When he came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him. This guy got a great education! He’s there under house arrest, and this poor but amazingly blessed soldier is getting to hear over and over Paul, when people come and visit him under house arrest, tell the story of Jesus Christ and His kingdom. What is that story? It is the story of the kingdom that we receive, that we inherit, by faith in Jesus Christ. The kingdom comes when you believe and you trust in the King. One of the things that I learned years ago when trying to study these things, and it always stuck with me, is the realization that there are certain verbs that are used with the kingdom in the New Testament. And they are not the verbs that some of us use. And I’ve probably used these as a preacher before and the Lord understands, but what I mean is, we sometimes speak about building the kingdom, expanding the kingdom. Those aren’t the ways the New Testament ever speaks about the kingdom. Nobody goes out and says, “I’m going to go build the kingdom.” The kingdom is not something that is built. It’s something that comes; it’s something that breaks in. But the verbs associated with the kingdom in the New Testament are passive verbs. You inherit the kingdom, you enter the kingdom, you receive the kingdom. It’s by faith and repentance in the Lord Jesus Christ we receive that kingdom.
Now the kingdom can break in. The kingdom is the heavenly reality. It’s the Eden paradise that was; it’s the garden paradise to come. It’s some of that heavenly world breaking in here on earth. Just like you can have a cloudy day and you can have the sun break in, the sun can shine more brightly, more warmly, but you don’t go and say, “Well, let’s go out and let’s build a bigger sun today!” The sun doesn’t grow! Okay, there’s somebody here who’s a scientist and they’re like, “There are solar flares!” But it doesn’t! It doesn’t! As we see it, it’s just there and it breaks in. The clouds can part; you can feel it. That’s the coming of the kingdom. So when it says that Paul is teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, proclaiming the kingdom of God, he’s not giving people their marching orders for what they have to do to go out and build the kingdom. He’s telling them how they can receive this gift of eternal life and understand who Jesus is and what He did.
Second lesson. So that’s the first – the mission of the church is the message of the Gospel. Second, the most important story is the Gospel story. Here’s why we think of this as a strange ending, because we think of this as a story about Paul or the apostles or the early church. And it is. And our Bibles call it “The Acts of the Apostles.” And so we think of this as a kind of biography of Peter and Paul or some mini-biographies or a church history. This is a history, but it’s a very particular theological history. And it’s not written like we would write history or like we would tell the story. Think about it. There’s no information on Peter’s work during the next twenty-five years of his life. After chapter 12, he just disappears. There’s nothing here on James and John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, Matthias. They do all the trouble of getting this twelfth apostle back – what happened to him? There’s nothing about Paul’s trip to Arabia that he references in Galatians or his missionary work in the first ten years after his conversion. All of these things, that if you were writing a chronicle of the apostles or a history of the early church you would expect to hear. But that’s not the book that was written. It is a story of what Christ has done by His Spirit through the Word to reach the nations. That’s the story. Peter plays a role, Paul, Stephen, Philip, they all have a part to play. But the play is not about them. The fate of Paul is secondary to the fate of the Gospel.
Do you believe that’s true for your life? Do I believe that’s true for my life? Of course death is an enemy. We hate death. I’m sure you have, as we have in our church, just story after story – there’s cancer diagnoses, there’s people whose kids are sick or dying. We hate death. We also realize from a story like Acts that though our lives may end, the purpose of our lives can go on. According to the church history, Eusebius, Paul’s martyrdom was not accomplished during the sojourn in Rome which Luke describes. We’re left wondering, “Well what happened?” Early Christian tradition says that Paul was released and engaged in further mission activity. The book 1 Clements says he reached the limits of the west. He died sometime later in Nero’s reign, maybe AD 64 or 68. He references coming to the end of his life in 2 Timothy. Luke likely wrote after Paul’s release and after his execution. So to finish with Paul’s release, people who knew the rest of the story would have thought, “Well, yeah, it wasn’t such a happy ending after all. That’s misleading.” But if you finish with Paul’s death, well then that really misses the point. If you just trace out and Paul was released and then later he did missionary service and then he died. That’s not the point of the book.
Here’s a great quotation from the scholar Eckhart Schnabel – that’s a great name! He says, “The story of Paul is cut short but the story of the risen Jesus goes on.” In one sentence, that’s why Acts 28 ends the way it does. Or you can put it like this. “The church will not die when you die.” The church will not die when I die. No matter what you write, what you do, preacher, pastor, missionary, the church will not die when you and I die. You see how this puts our lives in perspective? On the one hand, this keeps us humble to think, “What are you and I really living for? What really matters?” So David Brooks, who several years ago coined that phrase, “Are you living for the resume virtues or the eulogy virtues?” Are you living for the things you can put on a resume, a curriculum vitae, or the sort of things that you hope somebody would say about you at your eulogy? Who might be able to say at your funeral that they heard the Gospel from you? And maybe you had few opportunities, but they might say, “My mother taught me the Gospel, showed me in her life and example the Gospel, better than anyone I knew.”
The way this story ends, the great apostle Paul doesn’t even get a biography. And so it means for us the history of the world is not your biography or mine. We all think this way; we just can’t help it. You just live your life – now we would never say we are that important. We know better than to say that. But you kind of live your life; you’re all supporting actors and actresses in the great story that is the history of Kevin DeYoung! So glad you could play a role, a part in this grand story! This will be a nice few paragraphs somewhere! We just can’t help but sort of live our life that way. We’re the story; everyone else is a part of that story. This reminds us, of course, that’s not true!
The history of the world is not your biography, but it doesn’t just keep us humble, this ending. That would be discouraging. It also keeps us hopeful because while the history of the world is not your biography, your biography can contribute meaningfully to the history of the world. That’s important. The whole cosmic plan, what God is unfolding in the world, you and I can play a part, whether we are ever written down in any book. We may be forgotten, but the good news that we share with others will not be forgotten. This means that the most important person in this city and in our country and in the world is a lot less important than most of us think. And it also means that the person who seems least significant can leave a legacy and have a purpose much grander than he or she could ever imagine because you can be a part of this story. That’s the story.
Here’s the third and the final lesson. The Gospel of Jesus Christ will be constantly threatened but never silenced. We see in the book of Acts the growth and expansion of the church. Acts 6:7, “And the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” Acts 9:31, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” Acts 12:24, “But the Word of God increased and multiplied.” Acts 16:5, “So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily.” Acts 19:20, “So the Word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” If you want to think of Acts as a biography, it’s a biography of the Word of God. That’s the story that it’s telling. That’s the main actor. That’s by the Spirit. It’s the Word that’s really doing the work, that’s accomplishing these great things in the world. This is a book about the triumph of the Word, who Jesus, who said, “I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
Well we all know that promise. Think about it. It’s the only institution on earth that the Lord Jesus Himself had promised to build. There’s no promise that any of our beloved schools will last for all time. No promise that the United States of America will last past 2050. We have no promise that Jesus will build and sustain and keep any institution on earth except for one – the church. And however small your church – maybe this isn’t your home church, we have missionaries here; it may seem like just the size of a man’s fist in its strength and in its significance. No matter how small, no matter how difficult church life can be, remember, this is the institution Jesus Himself died for, and He loves as His own bride. And He Himself promises to build it and nothing can prevail against it. That’s the point in the book of Acts – nothing can stop the progress and the victory of the Gospel.
Obviously we know from the Bible and human experience that sometimes the lampstrand is snuffed out. Churches grow and they shrink; sometimes they die. They’re places where it’s extremely difficult soil, and yet, Acts reminds us the big picture story of what’s going on. Facing all sorts of persecution, the Word will be constantly threatened. That will happen until the end of time. The Gospel threatened, and the Gospel never silenced. Paul is here at the end of Acts under house arrest, watched constantly by a Roman soldier. And yet the book finishes – here’s what I just love about the Holy Spirit through Luke. It ends, this Greek word is “okolytos.” It’s the word “unhindered.” I mean, that’s a manner. That’s a good way to end the book about the Word of God. Here’s the last word in this book. Here’s what I want people to be left with as they think about the mission of Jesus in the world – unhindered. It’s going forth. Paul is preaching the Gospel and nothing in the end will stop it.
Second Timothy 2, as Paul is about to die – “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal.” But the Word of God is not bound! One scholar puts it like this – “Luke’s main concern is to leave the reader a reminder about the unstoppable Word of God which no obstacle – not shipwreck, not poisonous snakes, not Roman authorities, could hinder from reaching the heart of the empire and the hearts of those who dwelled there.” That’s the point. Do you believe that that’s what God is still doing in the world through the Word? Do you believe that the Word of God is still sufficient to accomplish the work of God?
One of my missionary heroes, probably some of yours, is Adoniram Judson. I named – what child is he? Fourth, fourth child! His name is Paul Adoniram – two great missionaries. He’s sixteen. I think the Adoniram part is still a little strange, but he’s going to read To the Golden Shore someday and he’s going to love that middle name! Adoniram Judson. First foreign missionary to set sail from American soil. Left a Congregationalist. He did become a Baptist on the boat. Something about all the water around them, no doubt! It’s alright, love Jesus! He married Ann on February 12, 1812. A week later they set sail for India, eventually settled in Burma. Adoniram did not return to the US for thirty-three years. He and his family adopted local customs. They learned the language. They lived among the Burmese people. They were in Rangoon for six years before Adoniram baptized his first convert. But when he died in 1850, a dictionary had been completed, the Scriptures had been translated, the church he started with one convert had grown to 7,000 members, more than 100 indigenous ministers ministering among the Burmese. Today, there are upwards of 3,500 Baptist churches in Myanmar. Adoniram Judson, his wife, his subsequent wives, their long-term approach to missions and church planting, evangelism, discipleship, church strengthening, has borne fruit that is beyond, as Ephesians says, beyond what one could dare to hope or imagine.
I’ll tell you one of my other heroes – Samuel Zwemer. Some of you have heard of him; many, perhaps, have not. Born in 1862. Died in 1952. I’ll tell you one of the reasons he’s my hero is he’s a Dutchman, like me. He’s from my part of the country. He was born in Freeland, Michigan. You’ve heard of Holland, Michigan, I trust. The Tulip Time parade. They have wooden shoes, they have windmills. It’s more Netherlands than the Netherlands ever was! I went to school there at Hope College. Samuel Zwemer went to school at Hope College, though I sadly wonder if my alma mater remembers anything about him. He grew up there in that little town. Even today, it’s just a rural little area; all of these old towns there in western Michigan. They have all these Dutch names – between Grand Rapids and Holland. And he went and he became the apostle to Islam. He was ordained in the Reformed Church in America, ministered in Bahrain, Arabia, Egypt. He edited a magazine directing people to the Muslim world. He later came back and he taught missiology at Princeton. You can find some of his books in print still today. They’re easy to read; they’re edifying. He absolutely literally put on the map ministry among Muslims. And I mention him because scholars estimate he saw less than a dozen converts in his lifetime. It doesn’t always end up like Adoniram Judson.
Samuel Zwemer, the great apostle to Islam, saw maybe on two hands the number of converts, and yet through his writing and his teaching and his preaching and his ministry and his professorship and his example, countless of multitudes were inspired to dare to go and minister the Gospel among Muslims. We don’t know what role that we will play. Unlikely that we will be Adoniram Judson, probably not Samuel Zwemer, but someone. Someone who will be, if you are faithful, the instrument of God bringing someone to Christ. And perhaps bringing someone to Christ in the farthest reaches of the world. Do you believe that? Sometimes when we talk about missions, it’s like we lose connection with all the rest of our theology. Meaning we talk about missions and everything is just about, “You gotta go. You’re gonna go and it’s gonna be terrible but you gotta go and you gotta do it! You love so much and it’s gonna be terrible and that’s why we have missions week! Once a week we can say, ‘You’re special!’” The New Testament doesn’t mean to motivate us like that and just tell Christians, “Shame on you,” and just press on your will until you go.
Think about faith, hope, love. That’s what missions is about. Faith. Do you and I believe still that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation? You know, I think evangelism is hard for most of us. It’s hard for me. I think there’s two main reasons. One, a lot of us don’t know a lot of non-Christians. And two, I think deep down we’re not sure this actually really works. People really come to know Christ through the Gospel? I remember when I was in seminary, one of my classes, everyone had to introduce themselves. There were maybe forty people. We had to fill in the blank, “I became a Christian when…” and most of us had a story like I did. “I became a Christian when I can’t even remember. My parents brought me to church and I prayed the prayer with them.” Wonderful story. There was one guy I’ll never forget. He said, “I became a Christian when somebody I’d never met stopped me in a 7-11 and shared the Gospel.” Wow, that happens, doesn’t it? That’s the way some people get saved. “The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation.” Do you and I believe that? Faith.
Hope. Do we have hope as Paul was told, there are yet some people in Corinth, there are people among every tribe and language and tongue and nation and that’s why we go. Even though you may see a handful of converts in your ministry, yet God is doing something, and He’s sowing a seed, and from that seed that falls into the earth and dies, it can bear fruit – 30, 60, 100 fold. Do you have hope?
Do you have love? We are all natural evangelists for the people and the things that we love most. I was born in Chicago. I’m a Bears fan. We finally had a good year. We didn’t get all the way, but my kids, they never lived in Chicago anywhere, they said, “Dad, why? Why did you give us this curse? Why couldn’t you have been born in Kansas City or something?” And this was finally a good year. Everyone at the church knows I’m a Bears fan. I talk about it. I love my football team. I’ll bet there’s a few people here who know, if you root for Mississippi State or Ole Miss, I’ll bet it’s known to people. I’ll bet they can tell what your loves are. And that’s good. We can have loves. We can have lots of different loves. It’s not hard to talk about your kids or your grandkids or share that you got engaged or you talk about a meal or your favorite donut or your favorite slice of pizza or salad, your favorite food. Now I understand there’s less shame with those things, less scandal, but the point is this – we all love to talk about people we love. We love to show pictures on our phones of places we’ve been and family members. We love to talk about people and things that we love.
As I think about my very failing, fumbling attempts to be a better personal evangelist, it’s not going to last long if you just leave here and say, “I’ve got to do better!” Here’s what you can pray – “Would You give me such a love for the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I not speak of Him? How could I not want to talk of Him? Because I have faith that the Gospel saves people, and I have hope that the King of the nations is saving even now people in the uttermost parts of the earth, and I love the Lord Jesus who first loved me.”
And so what a blessing we have to spread this message as God give us strength to do so, unhindered. Let’s pray.
Our gracious heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word which is precious to us. Would You so work in our hearts and lives that we might play some small role? Lord, whether we are forgotten or not, You will know and You will remember and You will see. And only heaven will tell what has been accomplished by the children we raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, the money that we put in the offering plate, the obedience to go and share and preach and labor. And so we ask that You would give us grace to this end, for the sake of Jesus who loves us and gave Himself for us we pray. Amen.