Introduction:

Mark 16:15 cf. Matthew 28:19

I. The Witness of the Body

A. The Beginning

1. God Has Desired To Communicate With Humanity, To Manifest His Truth.

a) His Crowning Act of Communication Was Sending Jesus Christ Into The World. After His death & resurrection, Christ ascended into heaven & is no longer visible on earth.

1) God, Through Christ, sent the Holy Spirit to Manifest Himself in Another Body.

(a) This time it was not one body physically but many bodies, making up one spiritual Body.

1. Christ is in the Body, manifesting His glory and all His attributes, just as he did in His human body when He was here for thirty-three years.

2. When Christ’s physical body was here, He manifested love, holiness, wisdom, power, and all the authority of God, Christians, as members of the Body of Christ, are to reflect these attributes to the world.

b) Every Member of the Body Can and Should Be A Witness (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)

1) Anyone Reconciled to Christ Has the Ministry of Telling Others About Him.

(a) Paul understood his calling from the very first.

1. In Damascus, shortly after his conversion, Ananias told him, “For you will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard” (Acts 22:15). No matter what his circumstances were, Paul always saw himself as an ambassador for Jesus Christ.

2. Writing from prison in Rome, he could still call himself “an ambassador in chains” (Eph. 6:20). Paul cared nothing for his own life; he cared only that Jesus Christ be exalted (Acts 21:13; Phil. 1:21).

2) Messengers of Peace Matthew 5:9

(a) The ministry of reconciliation is the ministry of peacemaking. Paul tells us that “God has called us to peace” (1 Cor. 7:15) & at least four things characterize a peacemaker.

1. First—the peacemaker is one who himself has made peace with God.

a. Before we came to Christ we were at war with God & it was “while we were enemies” of God that “we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:10).

b. When we received Christ as Savior and He imputed His righteousness to us, our battle with God ended, and our peace with God began.

¨ Because we have made peace with God we can enjoy the peace of God (Phil. 4:7; Col. 3:15).

¨ Because we have been given God’s peace we are called to share God’s peace. We are to have our feet shod with “the gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15).

2. Second—a peacemaker leads others to make peace with God.

a. Christians are not an elite corps of those who have spiritually arrived and who look down on the rest of the world. They are a body of sinners cleansed by Jesus Christ and commissioned to carry His gospel of cleansing to the rest of the world.

3. Third—a peacemaker helps others make peace with others.

a. Jesus said that if we are bringing a gift to God and a brother has something against us, we are to leave our gift at the altar and be reconciled to that brother before we offer the gift to God (Matt. 5:23-24).

b. As far as it is possible, Paul says, “so far as it depends on [us],” we are to “be at peace with all men” (Rom. 12:18). We are even to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, “in order that [we] may be sons of [our] Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:44-45).

4. Fourth—a peacemaker endeavors to find a point of agreement.

a. God’s truth and righteousness must never be compromised or weakened.

¨ God’s people are to contend without being contentious, to disagree without being disagreeable, and to confront without being abusive. The peacemaker speaks the truth in love (Eph. 4:15).

b. God’s most effective peacemakers are often the simplest and least noticed people.

¨ Because they bring righteousness and truth wherever they go, peacemakers are frequently accused of being troublemakers and disturbers of peace-as the Jewish leaders accused Jesus of being (Luke 23:2, 5).

¨ This is a mark of a true kingdom citizen: he not only hungers for righteousness and holiness in his own life but has a passionate desire to see those virtues in the lives of others.

(b) It is crucial to remember that the Holy Spirit empowers us (Acts 1:8 cf. John 15:26-27) to be witnesses.

B. Our Witness Is to the World

1. The World Has Hostility & Hatred Toward Believers.

a) The World is Generated & Controlled by Satan. The world is the entire system of evil that operates on the earth through demons and people who don’t know God (John 8:44).

1) The World Hates Christians (John 15:18-25; 16:1-3)

2) Being Sent Out Among Wolves (Luke 10:1-12)

3) Beware of False Prophets (Matt.7:15-20)

b) Our Response & Witness To the World

1) Love Your Enemies; God loved us when we were His enemies (Rom.5:10 cf. Matt.5:43:48)

(a) It was God’s goodness that led us to repentance (Romans 2:4)

2) Love One Another (John 13:33-35)

3) Visible Unity (John 17:20-21)

(a) Must endeavor to keep the unity (Eph.4:3); give diligence, labor

2. To Recover Straying Sinners James 5:19-20

a) Bringing Wandering Sinners to God is the Task of Every Believer. The realization that those who knowingly reject Christ face a severer judgment (cf. Luke 12:47–48) should spur believers to evangelize the lost within the church.

1) In Luke 19:10 the Lord Jesus Christ defined His messianic mission when He said,

“The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost,” and His church is to follow His example (Matt. 28:19–20). The salvation of lost, doomed sinners brings joy to heaven (Luke 15:7, 10). Believers have the great privilege of participating in the ministry of reconciliation that prompts that eternal joy.

3. Preach the Word – 2 Timothy 4:1-5

a) What does God’s Word say about how we are to minister? Jesus said, “Go … and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20).

1) Preach the Word; Be ready in season and out of season

(a) The entire written Word of God, His complete revealed truth as contained in the Bible (cf. 3:15,16; Acts 20:27).

(b) The spiritual power and effectiveness of preaching does not rest in the skill of the speaker but in the truth.

1. Colossians 1:25-29

2. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

(c) The Preacher must proclaim the Word of God even when:

1. it seems suitable, or not suitable

2. it is popular or not popular

3. it is accepted or not accepted

2) Paul the Apostle Exhorted Timothy & said,

(a) “Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13).

(b) “And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).

(c) “As for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1).

C. Evangelistic Prayer

1. Reasons for Evangelistic Prayer

a) Paul’s Answer is One of the Most Dramatic Passages in all Scripture (1 Timothy 2:1-7).

b) Morally Right. God defines prayer for the lost as the noble and spiritually proper thing to do, and our consciences agree. The lost suffer the agony of sin, shame, and meaninglessness in this life, and the eternal hell of unrelenting agony in the life to come. Knowing that, our most excellent task is to pray for their salvation.

1) We pray as ambassadors of Christ.

(a) It is our task to beseech men and women on His behalf to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20).

(b) Our earnest desire ought to be for the salvation of all sinners (cf. Rom. 9:3; 10:1).

2. Discipleship – Matthew 28:19-20

a) Discipleship Involves Bringing People to Christ and Leading them to Maturity.

b) Every Christian is in a relay race.

1) Each of us is to take the baton and hand it on to others. None of us is in a solo effort. Somebody invested the gospel in us, and we are to invest it in others.

(a) You may feel that you don’t know much.

(b) Find someone who knows less than you do and tell him what you know. Find someone who knows more than you do and listen to him. Teach and be taught. I pour my heart into the people I disciple, and I learn from others. All of us have to be in that flow. We’re not to be isolated; we’re a chain all linked together.

c) Discipling Is A Function That Everyone Must Be Involved In

1) It Isn’t Optional.

(a) We’re all to bring people to the knowledge of the Savior and go through the process of helping them mature.

(b) We’re all to disciple whomever the Lord brings across our path.

1. You will probably have different kinds of relationships with the people you disciple, but discipleship is nothing more than building a true friendship with a spiritual basis. It’s not being friends with someone because you both like baseball, the same music, the same hobbies, or work at the same place. At the core of your friendship is an openness about spiritual issues. That’s what carries a discipling relationship along.

(c) When you disciple someone, you’re basically teaching him to live a godly lifestyle.

1. You’re teaching him biblical responses. A person is spiritually mature when his involuntary responses are godly. That’s how to know if the Spirit of God has control in someone’s life. In discipleship you’re to bring a person to the point where he doesn’t have to figure out how to act right because he can react right spontaneously.

(d) You can’t teach someone to follow everything that God has commanded without investing your life in that person. Discipling can’t be done superficially. You can’t make disciples by passing out tracts and beating it out of town! There’s more to it than that.

Throughout His Word, God gives repeated calls for sinful men to repent and to turn to Him and be saved.

Through Moses, the Lord declared,

I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. (Deut. 30:19–20)

Through Isaiah, He implored,

“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:6–7).

Jesus promised,

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28–29), and that, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (16:24–25).

Jesus commanded His apostles to:

“go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15), and that “repentance for forgiveness of sins [should] be proclaimed in His name to all the nations” (Luke 24:47).