Evangelism and Missions

Introduction

It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations. The new birth of man’s spirit by God’s Holy Spirit means the birth of love for others. Missionary effort on the part of all rests thus upon a spiritual necessity of the regenerate life, and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has commanded the preaching of the gospel to all nations. It is the duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness undergirded by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the gospel of Christ.

The Baptist Faith and Message, Article XI

Great Commission Intro

Tonight we are talking about one of the central responsibilities of the church— “preaching the Gospel to all nations.”

Commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Important passage for Christians

Important passage for Baptists

We were the first Protestants to establish a Foreign Missions Board

1792—Baptist Missionary Society

It was largely due to a document he wrote called “An Enquiry”

Full Title: An Enquiry Into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens

Suppose a company of serious Christians, ministers and private persons were to form themselves into a society and make a number of rules respecting the regulation of the plan, and the persons who are to be employed as missionaries...This society must consist of persons whose hearts are in the work, men of serious religion and possessing a spirit of perseverance.

William Carey, An Enquiry

Since that time, missions has been the driving force for so much of the cooperation between Baptist churches

So important to Southern Baptists that our Convention voted that churches could even go by the name “Great Commission Baptist” instead of “Southern Baptist” in 2012

In 2021, the theme of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, TN was “We are Great Commission Baptists”

Difference Between Evangelism and Missions

How is this Great Commission fulfilled?

The main way is through Christians evangelizing and engaging in biblical mission work

BUT...There is a difference between evangelism and missions.

Tonight we will define each.

We will talk about is missions and the local church

And we will talk about the Aim and End of all evangelism and missions

Outline

1. Evangelism is the Duty and Delight of Every Christian.

2. Missions is the Duty and Delight of Every Church.

3. The Glory of God is the Aim and End of Evangelism and Missions.

1. Evangelism is the Duty and Delight of Every Christian.

Six Things to Know About Evangelism

1. Evangelism is spreading the Good News.

The word evangelism comes from the Greek word for “Good News”

The world is lost

God is compassionate and sent Jesus to die for their sins

Jesus rose again

Jesus saves

Jesus will come again

God has chosen His people, who make up His Church, to take this Gospel to the world.

It is on our spiritual ID card as Christians.

Matthew 5:14 ESV

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Evangelism is not a church program. It is WHO the Church is. It is WHAT the Church does.

YOU are the CHURCH.

That means evangelism is your duty.

It is part of what it means to BE Christians.

God saves you by His grace and gives you the task of being a herald for the Cross and the Resurrection

You are to be a witness to what God has done in Christ so that everyone may come to the saving knowledge of Christ

2. Evangelism is an act of love toward people.

The Faith and Message says those who are born again will love others

If we believe that people who die in their sins apart from Christ will go to Hell (which is what we confessed in Article Ten)...

...It would be unloving to not tell them.

An old Sri Lankan Methodist minister named DT Niles once said:

Evangelism is one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread.

Dr. D.T. Niles

What kind of man knows what it is like to starve...

Finds an unlimited source of bread...

and then watches other starve instead of telling them about the bread?

You would say that man is monstrously unloving.

And yet—if we ignore evangelism, we become that sort of person toward the lost world.

Evangelism is love.

And it should be soaked with love.

You cannot use the sword in order to make disciples.

We have no instruction for that in the Scripture

You cannot baptize people in order to make them disciples

That is backwards.

We baptize them after they believe

You cannot force people to become disciples

God changes hearts—we do not

BUT you can LOVE people in HOPES of them becoming disciples.

This is what we are doing as we go to them with:

Gospel on our lips

Love in our hearts

We preach in love because He first loved us

1 John 4:10 ESV

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

3. Evangelism should be done LAW to GRACE.

This simply means that people need to hear the Bad News if they are going to understand the Good News

Romans 3:19 ESV

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

Many people are not convinced they are sinners

If we start with “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” that doesn’t necessarily convince them that you have a message they need to hear

Imagine if I come to you and say, “Doctors are great and they want you to be healthy.”

You are like… Cooooooool.

But imagine if I come to you and say, “You are very sick and you need to go to a doctor who is great and wants you to be healthy.”

Now we are having a different conversation.

We need to tell people that God has a Law (The Ten Commandments)

They have broken that Law

They are in danger of eternal judgment and Hell

THEN WE HERALD GRACE!

BUT GOD sent His Son to die for your lawbreaking

He was crucified in your place

He has risen from the grave

He offers you forgiveness and eternal life

The Law convicts their hearts of sin

Leaves them crying out for a Savior

We are there to tell them that Savior’s name

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Galatians 3:24, King James Version

The Law is a tutor that teaches the need for Christ and brings the sinner to Him—broken and ready to repent and believe

4. Evangelism is most often done within the routines of life.

There is a place for street evangelism

There is a place for Good News Club

There is a place for evangelizing at the Egg Hunt

There is a place for evangelism as a program

But notice that the Baptist Faith and Message says:

It is the duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness undergirded by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the Gospel.

The Baptist Faith and Message, Article XI

How you be constantly seeking to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness if you reduce it to a program?

How can it be part of your lifestyle if it is only treated like an event

How you can you always be ready to give a defense for the hope within you with gentleness and respect if you see it as a sometimes thing?

We should always be looking to tell others about Christ.

At the places we work, inasmuch as we are able to

In the home we live in

At the convenience stores we regularly stop in

In the neighborhood

At our favorite restaurants

Local Pillar pastor who always eats at Bird’s Diner in Newport News

Invited a server to church 10 years ago

She rejected him coldly and walked away

He thought, “I’ll work on her for years.”

He eats there regularly and keeps inviting her to church

This past Easter Sunday—TEN YEARS after his first invite—she came to his church

Do you see how it is woven into his life?

If I am going to be eating at this diner regularly, my server will hear of my Jesus.

Do we think like this?

We need to.

Everyday, before go out into our days, we should ask God, “If it be your will, please give me a plain, clear-cut opportunity to be a witness for you today.”

Will you have the boldness to ask God for that?

But as you ask for it, just remember that the Faith and Message says that your witness must be undergirded with a Christian lifestyle.

That means that as you pray for those opportunities, you must also pray for God to sanctify you with His truth and make you more Christlike in all things.

5. Evangelism must be soaked in prayer.

Went out in college with the Richmond Biblical Evangelism Team.

They met 90 minutes early to pray.

I have never sat and prayed that long in my life.

Then we went out preaching on a Friday night in downtown Richmond and I saw why we prayed

There was intense opposition

If doors will open for the Gospel, they will happen because of how you pray on your knees

If you want the blessings of the Spirit’s power in your evangelism, you better be praying that He will pour it out

If you want your friends and family to have their hearts softened in preparation for the Gospel, you better pray regularly for it

Colossians 4:3 ESV

At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—

6. Evangelism is a delight.

God could have had the angels herald his message

He could have written it in the stars

He could have had the rocks sing it

But He chose clay pots like us to be filled with the treasure of the Gospel

That way when the Gospel is at work, no one would attribute the power to the clay pots, but to the God of grace

2 Corinthians 4:7 ESV

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

He has chosen you to be an ambassador, representing Heaven on Earth.

He has set you apart as a witness to the Resurrection of Christ

And when your feet bring the glad tidings of Good News to the Lost World, He calls them beautiful

Isaiah 52:7 ESV

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

While evangelism is an obligation because Christ commanded it, it is also a beautiful delight to be a “Publisher of Peace.”

2. Missions is the Duty and Delight of Every Church.

In 15 years I have tried to teach you a lot of theology —Study of Theology

I have tried to teach a lot of ecclesiology —Study of Church

I have tried to teach good anthropology —Study of People

I have tried to teach good epistemology—Study of knowledge

I don’t think I have done a very good job teaching you missiology

But it is time to start!

Six Things to Know About Mission Work

1. Mission work is evangelism, but not all evangelism is mission work.

Let’s define mission work or missions.

Missions involves churches sending qualified workers across linguistic, geographic or cultural barriers to start or strengthen churches, especially in places where Christ has not been named.

John Folmar and Scott Logsdon

This definition is born from the Scriptures

It is what we see the church doing in the New Testament

Going from city to city, country to country, continent to continent...

...Crossing language barriers...

...Crossing cultural barriers...

...Crossing geographic barriers and borders...

...All to start churches and strengthen the ones that are there

You see it in the mission directive for the church in Acts 1:8

Acts 1:8 ESV

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 end of the earth.”

You see it in the mission actions of the church

Romans 15:20 ESV

and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation,

Acts 15:41 ESV

And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

This means, by definition, all missions is evangelism

It is the spreading of Good News

If you are like Daniel Chambers (Southern Europe) you are trying to plant a church

If you are like Brian White (Uganda) or Keith Percic (West Africa), you are training pastors so that the existing churches are strengthened

If you are like Melody Warford, you are working with others to see the Bible translated for churches and pastors

All of this is missions AND evangelism

BUT—not all evangelism is missions

Going down to Yorktown Beach with a few Christian friends from multiple churches, handing out Gospel tracts IS evangelism—but not mission work

Going down to the Rescue Mission to preach at the chapel and serve food is definitely evangelism and mercy ministry—but not mission work

We should keep these boundaries clean.

Brooks Buser says that if everything is missions, nothing is missions.

Distinctions are helpful when it comes to knowing how to pray, invest and partner

2. Mission work begins with, is sustained by and ends with the local church.

Where does mission work begin?

We know that theologically missions begins with God and the command of His Word.

But from there—where does mission work start from a human perspective.

The biblical answer is the local church.

Acts 13:1–3 ESV

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

The model given to us in the Bible is that mission work originates in local churches.

Churches equip missionaries, churches train missionaries, churches send missionaries

How is mission work sustained?

If you read Acts you will notice that Antioch doesn’t just send the missionaries off—they receive them back.

Acts 14:26–28 ESV

and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they remained no little time with the disciples.

What is implied is an ongoing relationship.

The church at Antioch sent them.

The church at Antioch continues to support them.

Same thing in Philippians—Paul speaks of his partnership with them.

He praises them for giving to the work.

Philippians 4:18 ESV

I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.

The Church is Jesus’ global-disciple-making plan.

It is great to have organizations that come alongside and help the church.

But they can never replace the church.

What is the end goal of mission work?

The answer, once more, is the Church!

The goal is to start and strengthen more churches that will start more churches!

The goal is to train more pastors to...START MORE CHURCHES!

The goal is to get the Bible into every heart language, so we can have disciple-making churches for every heart language.

Missions is Never Detached from the Local Church

Ultimately this means that missions is never detached from the local church.

When someone says, “Come join in on this mission work...”

And you ask, “What church or churches is this associated with?”

If they answer, “None—just an organization...”

My response would be, “Tell me more, but I am not sure we are having a conversation about true mission work right now.”

Why?

Because missions, by biblical description, cannot be detached from the church

3. Mission work endeavors to start and strengthen churches.

This may seem redundant

But now that we know where mission work starts and ends...let’s ask what it does.

It is aiming to start new churches and strengthen churches and get the Word to churches

This means that work which is not doing this, is not mission work.

For example—building wells in Africa is great.

That is mercy ministry.

That is possibly evangelism, if it comes with verbal articulation of the Gospel.

But if it is not aimed at the church, it is not really mission work.

What we consistently see in the Bible is that mission work is crossing:

Language barriers

Cultural Barriers

Geographic barriers

ALL for the purpose of the local church spreading globally

Again—this is God’s plan.

Building wells is merciful

Packing food is merciful

Giving away clothes is merciful

But is not necessarily missions

And that is FINE!

I believe God uses all sorts of different ministries in His Kingdom

But THE plan for Kingdom expansion is the Church

The Great Commission won’t be fulfilled if the local church is no longer in the crosshairs for mission work

But It Does Take Time

But it does take time.

I don’t want to insinuate that it is easy to just get some training, swoop in, plant a church and BOOM—> MISSIONS!

You can look at our own mission board’s approach and see what the process is like for the missionary.

SHOW ENTRY TO EXIT PHOTO HERE

Entry: Research, Establishing a way to get in country, Establishing a presence in country, learning to communicate

Evangelism: This is where you are going about sharing the Good News; trying to find people of peace open to the Gospel

Discipleship: This is where you baptize new disciples and teach them to obey Christ

Healthy Church Formation: This is where you actually plant a church with these disciples

Leadership Development: You raise up the men who will elder/pastor the church together

Exit to Partnership: You leave those men in charge of the congregation and you exit.

That church is now a partner who should raise up and send out missionaries

But I cannot emphasize enough — this takes time.

Speed is not a virtue on the mission field.

Faithfulness is the better way.

Daniel Chambers is trying to plant a church for NAME people in Southern Europe.

He has been on the ground for 5 years.

He is still very much in the evangelism phase.

Many say it takes 7 years for a Muslim man to covert to Christianity.

Planting a church in a totally Arabic neighborhood in Europe?

Yeah—that is a slow work.

4. Mission work should have a clearly defined Gospel.

One time I heard a guy give a “Mission Trip Report” about a trip he had just gone on with his church

He said they were building a village house by house and had been going down there for years to do it

When we asked about evangelism, he said, “We have a rule not to evangelize. We are just there to help them.”

That is not a mission trip.

That is not even an evangelism trip.

That is just humanitarian aid

If someone says, “My son is a missionary in Romania,” and you ask what he does...

...They say, “Teaches English.”

You ask, “Is he evangelizing the students?”

“Is he trying to start a church?”

If they respond, “No,” then their son is no missionary.

He is just an English teacher with a passport.

Missions must have the Gospel.

Mark 16:15 ESV

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

If you leave the proclamation of the Gospel out, you are just traveling.

This must be kept in mind when choosing mission partners.

We don’t have time or money to mess around with partners who aren’t clear about the Gospel.

There are way too many that are to mess around with those who are not!

5. Mission work requires contextualization, but not alteration.

The Gospel is not proclaimed the same everywhere.

As the church trains up and sends out missionaries, it is important that they learn their context.

We should not rush people onto the mission field—especially those who are going long-term.

To properly preach in that context they may need to learn:

Language

Social norms

How to Dress

How the Culture Typically Learns

Social miscues

Cultural sacred cows

As they learn the culture, they adjust their approach to Gospel proclamation.

This is called contextualization.

Contextualization: to translate our speech and adapt our behavior to make God’s Word understandable and accessible.

Brooks Buser leads Radius International (frontline Baptist missions organization).

He went to Papua New Guinea and planted a church.

The tribe he planted a church in had a social norm—to become a man, you had to slay a wild boar with a spear in the jungle alone in the middle of the night

Buser went into the woods and did this.

Otherwise he would not have been a

man in that culture.

They would not listen to his Gospel.

He killed the boar (adapted behavior) so the Gospel would be clear.

But contextualization NEVER means ALTERATION.

The goal of contextualization is to remove barriers to the gospel through clear communication (Col. 4:4). That doesn’t mean our purpose is to remove the offense of Christ. Missionaries must not revise or manipulate the unchangeable and transcultural truth of Scripture in order to make the gospel more palatable. 

Eliot Clark, Reaching and Teaching

True mission work is fluid and flexible on the means of proclamation.

But it is firm and dogmatic about the message that is being proclaimed.

An example of Paul adopting this principle would be when he had Timothy circumcised so that the Jews in the places they were going would receive the Gospel from Timothy

Acts 16:3 ESV

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

Maybe I should say this was an example of Timothy practicing contextualization.

HE MADE THE SACRIFICE!

6. Mission work is fueled by the sovereignty of God.

It would be almost hopelessly daunting to look out at the lost world and say, “It is on us. We have to change their minds.”

But there is a greater power at work.

God is sovereignly drawing His people to Himself

He knows who will be saved and He will not lose a single one

And He is using us to go and get those He has sovereignly appointed to salvation.

Acts 13:48 ESV

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

How many believed?

As many as were appointed!

John 10:16 ESV

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Jesus will have His flock.

When we surrender ourselves to be His voice on the mission field, His sheep hear Him.

They come to Him.

Knowing the power of salvation lies with God from beginning to end, frees us up to just join in on the partnership!

3. The Glory of God is the Aim and End of Evangelism and Missions.

One Great Thing to Know About Evangelism and Missions

Psalm 67:4–5 ESV

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!

What does the Psalmist want the nations to do?

PRAISE GOD!

That tells us that the end goal of the Great Commission is the glory of God.

That is why we want more people to come to Christ and be discipled—so that He would get more glory.

Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Missions is our way of saying: the joy of knowing Christ is not a private, or tribal, or national or ethnic privilege. It is for all. And that’s why we go. Because we have tasted the joy of worshiping Jesus, and we want all the families of the earth included.

John Piper

We believe that the promise of Revelation 7:9 will come true.

Revelation 7:9 ESV

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

That will be a glorious day for the glorious Name of God.

We are working for that Day.

We go to every nation...

We go to every tribe...

We go to every people...

We go to every language...

Because we know that God is going to get His glory from them all

He will have His Kingdom citizens represented from the whole world

He will get His glory from His churches worldwide

And WE get to be a part of seeing this all come about.

So this is our motivation in missions.

It is seeing God glorified as the nations come into His fold, soul by soul.

Conclusion: Three Quick Application

Church Invites on the Way Out

Go out and be an evangelist!

Ask God for opportunities and BE BOLD!

Missions Week in September

September 14-20

Mark off your calendars

Opportunities to increase your prayers for missions

We will give sacrificially above and beyond our tithe to missions

We will make sure you know how you can be engaged

Pray for God to raise up missionaries from within our church

Young People

Full Blown Adults