Evangelism Is Not Optional, Part 1

Tom Shrader opens a multi-part series on evangelism by examining the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, arguing that sharing the gospel is not an optional activity reserved for missionaries but a command for every follower of Christ as they go about ordinary life. He unpacks the key elements of the commission — making disciples, baptism, and ongoing teaching — and outlines six foundational doctrines believers should know and pass on, including the authority of Scripture, the sovereignty of God, the depravity of man, and salvation by grace alone. The teaching closes with a challenge for believers to examine whether their daily lives actually reflect the evangelistic priority Christ commands.

“No one has ever been won to Christ with a wordless sermon alone.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Evangelism Is Not Optional

Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 1 hr 9 min

Themes: evangelism, great commission, sharing your faith, discipleship, obedience, missions, everyday witness, gospel, new believer, feeling unequipped to share faith, young adult, longtime churchgoer, struggling with obedience, parent wanting to teach children, believer avoiding evangelism, small group member

Scripture: Matthew 28:19-20, John 4:4, John 4:15, John 4:25-26, John 4:28, Mark 16:15, Luke 24, Acts 1:8, 1 Peter 3:15, Matthew 4:19, 2 Timothy 2:10, 2 Corinthians 11:24, Genesis 6:5, Ephesians 2:1-3, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 9:18, Romans 8, John 10

Theological Themes: great commission, soteriology, total depravity, sola gratia, biblical authority, making disciples, sovereignty of god, salvation by grace

Full Transcript

Introduction: The Woman at the Well

We are continuing our study in the life of Christ. I invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 and 20, where we find what is typically identified as the Great Commission. I thought for years the Great Commission was 7% on raw land and 10% on finished product, but apparently not. God has a Great Commission as well, and that is what we are going to talk about.

If you have been with us, you know that is not where we have been studying. We are not even studying the Gospel of Matthew. We are working our way through a harmony of the Scripture — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John brought together as best we can in chronological order to give us as complete a picture of the life of Christ as we can get.

In John chapter 4, we met a woman, and I confess to you, I have become infatuated with this woman. I have a thing for this girl, and what makes it so wonderful is that Susan does not seem to mind. It is the Samaritan woman — the woman at the well. You know the story in John 4; it is what we have been studying for the last couple of weeks.

Jesus has to go from Judea to Galilee, and John 4:4 says He had to go through Samaria. We have looked at this. He did not have to go that way humanly — He had alternatives — but He had to go spiritually, supernaturally, because He had a divine appointment. God had arranged a meeting with a woman.

The Conversation at the Well

He meets this woman and says, "Give me a drink." She says, "How is it that you, a Jew, are talking to me, a Samaritan? We are the Hatfields and the McCoys. We are arch rivals. We do not communicate, we do not get along, we have nothing to do with one another." He says, "Well, if you really knew who it was who asked you to give Him a drink, you would ask Him for a drink of living water."

She says to Him, "You do not even have a bucket — how would you get me living water?" He says, "I will give you water and you will never thirst again. I will give you water and it will spring up inside of you as eternal life." She says then in verse 15, "Sir, give me this water so I do not have to come out here and draw this water again." That sounds like a pretty good deal — water so that she will never thirst again and will never have to go through this laborious effort all over again.

Jesus understands that she has missed His point. She is thinking on a physical plane; He is speaking on a spiritual plane. So He says, "Go get your husband. Let's talk to him." She says, "Well, I do not have a husband." And He says, "That is right — you have had five, and now you are living with a man."

She says, "I perceive you are a prophet. There is something special about you. How did you know this? I have a question for you: which religion is right? Which church should I go to? Who knows the truth? We Samaritans worship here on this mountain; you Jews worship down at the temple in Jerusalem. Where should I worship? Where should I go to church?"

Jesus says to her, "There is an hour coming," speaking of His death and resurrection, "where you are going to worship not in a place, not on a mountain, not in a temple, but in spirit and in truth." The spirit there is a lowercase s — He is speaking of something inner. It will not be an outward conformance and compliance to rules, regulations, and ritual, but something that takes place within, a spirit and truth.

The Moment of Revelation

She says in verse 25, "We know that the Messiah is coming. We have been waiting for hundreds and hundreds of years for this Messiah. When He comes, He is going to clarify all of this." And Jesus says to her in John 4:26, "I who speak to you am He."

To me, that is a fascinating story, but what absolutely grips me is her response. Let me put it on the screen for you. It is chapter 4, verse 28: *"She left her water pot and went into the city and said to the men, 'Come see a man who told me all the things I've done. This isn't the Christ, is it?'"*

All of a sudden she understands who Jesus is, and there is immediate transformation in her life. All of a sudden there is a change of priorities. She was there for a specific task — one she performed presumably every day, coming to get water to store for sustaining her life. She forgets all about it. Why? Because she has a new Master. She has a new agenda. She has a new motivation in her life. She is no longer living to please herself; she is now living to please the Master, the Messiah. Immediately, instantaneously, her life is transformed, and one of the evidences of that is a change in priorities and this innate desire to share the truth.

Evangelism Is Not Optional

That is what I want to look at. We are titling this series: *Evangelism Is Not Optional.* I want you to grasp that.

My mentor, Larry Wright, used to say this: witnessing is not optional, witnessing is not mandatory, witnessing is inevitable. Now, I am making a distinction here between witnessing and evangelism. Witnessing may be part of evangelism, but when he talks about witnessing, he is talking about a lifestyle — a way you live as you conduct yourself. It is not optional, it is not mandatory, it is inevitable.

You are a witness. You are a witness this morning. You were a witness to the people around you when you came in here. You will be a witness when you leave. You will be a witness this day, all your life — you will be a witness all your days.

Witnessing vs. Evangelism

Some of you will have the most dramatic impact on other people in the process of dying, in the process of sickness. People are going to look at you and be blown away by how you handle that. They may see you in a time of great suffering and pain, and all of a sudden there is a calmness about you, a redirection of the people around you away from yourself and toward God and the things of God. So you are witnessing all the time.

Evangelism, to me, is the verbal expression of that. That is the distinction I am making today. There are going to be moments in your life — sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes I am afraid neutral — where you will be used by God simply in the way you live to create thirst in the people around you. That is not evangelism to me. There is a verbal aspect to this that I am trying to strike at.

1 Peter 3:15 says, "Always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account of the hope that is in you, to do it with gentleness and reverence." The idea Peter has here is that people are saying: there is a hope in you, there is something in you that is different from the rest of the world. Where is it coming from? What is the source of it? Why are you like that? Why do you have peace in the midst of this?

A Personal Illustration: Three Denials

I have shared this before — I had a friend from back home who came down to visit years ago. We went out to a ball game, ASU was dominating in football, and afterward we went to dinner. He said, "I haven't seen you in a long time, and you seem very different. Something is very different about you. What is different about you?" I said, well, I am a little thinner, hair is a little grayer, a little less of it. He accepted that and moved on.

A little bit later he said, "I have been watching you with Susan and the girls, been around your house, and you guys are very different. There is something very different and unique about you." I said, well, I am getting a little older, a little more mellow — I quit drinking. A little bit later, for the third time, he said, "Tom, there is something very different about you. I am not going to ask again, I am not going to mention it again, but there is something very different about you."

I looked him right in the eye and uttered those now-famous words: "Living in Arizona really agrees with me." And I had denied Christ three times. That is where the witnessing had happened. That is where I had lived it.

No One Is Won by a Wordless Sermon Alone

I hear people say all the time, "I am not going to go out and be a Bible thumper. I am not going to beat people up with the gospel. I am just going to live in such a way that they see the difference in my life, and then they will get converted through that process." Now, get this: no one has ever been won to Christ by a wordless sermon alone.

What my friend saw in my life was a transformed life. He knew me before — he knew what a mess I was, he knew what motivated me, he knew all of those things. He saw a transformation that had taken place. But that transformation alone was not going to lead him to Christ.

"Live your life in such a way that people see your good works, and they glorify your Father in heaven." They did not even get to that point. They saw the good works, and I said it was weight loss, hair, maturity, living in Arizona. In your life, there has to be a moment where you say, "Here is what is different — it is Jesus." That is what it means. That is what we are talking about.

That is what Peter means by being ready to make a defense of the hope that lies within you. There is something different about you, something unique, a hope, a sense of optimism. Where does it come from? Why is your marriage unique? Why are you so different? Because if you do not say it is Jesus, people will write it off — they will say that is just the way you were born, or that is a good attitude, or he finished that anger management class. Something just seems a little different and worked out for him.

Our Roadmap for This Series

Over the next few weeks, we are going to work through evangelism using a series of questions. Here is the roadmap. First: what is Christ's command, and are you answering that call? Second: what is our message to the world? Third: how should the messenger be prepared? And finally: some marching orders.

Today we will only deal with the first question. I thought we would cover two, but we will not. Next week we will take up questions two and three, and in the final week we will deal with the last two questions.

What Does Christ Command?

Christ offers many commands throughout His life, but I am looking specifically at what He commands in the area of evangelism. Turn to Matthew chapter 28. Jesus said: "Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I command you." And in verse 20, the second part: "Lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth."

The Command to Go

We are going to spend this morning really focused on this command, trying to unpack it and to see what it means to us and for us. First of all, understand that this command is not isolated. It is not the only time in Scripture that Jesus talks about going. Mark 16:15: "Go into the world and preach the gospel to all creation." Luke 24: "Thus it is written that Christ should suffer and rise from the dead the third day, that the repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem." You will see that over and over again.

Jesus appears ten times after the resurrection, and then one other time years later to Paul. His dominant message in each of those appearances is the idea of going and preaching the gospel. As you do that, He says in Acts 1:8, you will receive power. Look at the passage in front of you. Verse 18: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and earth." Now because He has all authority, He says go. You have that authority — go and make disciples, and He will be with you always.

You have this power, this dunamis — the Greek word from which we get the English word dynamite. It is used for all of our life, for our gifts, for our service, for our fellowship, for all of our experiences. We are to go. We are to be witnesses.

Witnesses and Martyrs

John MacArthur writes this: "So many Christians sealed their witness to Christ with their blood that the word witness became to mean martyr." In other words, the words witness and martyr were interchangeable in the early church. Their blood became the seed of the church. Many were drawn to faith in Christ by observing how calmly and joyously Christians met their death.

There was this understanding in the early church that if you were a witness, you were going to suffer and likely die. And there were others who, as they observed this, were pulled in by the fact that Christians approached death with joy. I remember reading years ago about the Christians gathered in Rome who were being held outside the Colosseum and then released one by one to be wrestled and eaten by the lions. The Christians were arguing with one another over who would go next — "I'll go next, I'll go next." I knew there was no Schrader there, because he would have been saying, "You can go next, and you can go next — fill their little bellies up, and maybe they won't want to eat me."

There was this synonymous connection between witnessing and martyrdom. So if I am going to go and give my life for it, I am going to need something beyond my natural power. That is exactly what He promises: you will have power — the power of the Holy Spirit. Look again at the passage in front of you, at the end of verse 20: "Lo, I am with you always" — all times, to the very ends of the earth. Always means literally all the days. Throughout all of your life, He will be present with those who belong to Him.

The Normal Christian Life

My premise this morning is very simple: you are commanded to do this. This is a picture of the normal Christian life. You are to be regularly sharing, in your everyday life, the truth of Christ — who He is and what the gospel is. That is simply a normal part of life, and there may be suffering attached to it. Inevitably, there will be suffering at different levels.

I went through the packet that Mike had prepared for the team going to Baja, and toward the end I found a section that used this verse, 2 Timothy 2:10. Paul said: "For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory." Paul says he is willing to endure all sorts of hardship, difficulty, pain, and suffering for the sake of the gospel.

We have a very clear picture of that in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul catalogs his suffering. He writes in verse 24: "Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a day and a night I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers in the sea, dangers among false brethren. I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, and in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches."

Paul says he endures all these things because the gospel is so important. The gospel is the hope of the world. He endures all these things so he can proclaim the gospel, so the chosen can hear it and respond, and with it attain salvation and eternal glory.

What to Expect

In the packet Mike gave the students and staff leaving for Baja, there is a section called "What to Expect." This is what they read before they signed up for the trip. It reads: this is going to be a hard trip. Travel is going to be long, hard, tiring, and cramped, without many stops. You may need to sleep in uncomfortable, cramped, cold, and noisy conditions — if you get to sleep at all. There will be bugs, and some of them will bite. Everything will smell, mostly for the worse. Food might not be what you want, when you want it, in the amount you want it, or at the right temperature. Sometimes you will miss meals altogether.

As You Are Going

There's a chance you'll get sick for many different causes, leaving you miserable even if you're careful. You might have problems with team members or team leaders. You might not get the job you want, or you might get the job you didn't want. You could feel useless at times, or so busy you can't even think. The days are going to be long and tiring, yet through it all, you will find this trip very rewarding — and it'll be fun too.

But that is supposed to be a picture of your life. The circumstances are going to change, but as you begin to share Christ in your world, as you're a missionary in your world, there is some discomfort attached to it. There is some suffering and hardship attached to it. You're not always going to get what you want or do what you want, but that's okay because there's a larger cause. It's the cause of the gospel, and there will be a reward.

Why do people do that? Think about your own life. It is Sunday morning at 11:07. There's lots of stuff you could be doing — it's a magnificent, beautiful day out. You work hard. Some of you work five days, some five and a half, some six, so this is the only day you've got off, and yet you got up early this morning, cleaned everybody up, circled them up, and got them here. Not only that, here's what's really strange: some of you even paid to be here, dropping money in the boxes as you came in. What would make a person do that? That doesn't make any sense to the rest of the world.

Your life has been transformed. It has been changed. And Sunday is simply a more visible and graphic expression of what takes place the rest of your days — which is a sacrifice for Him. You have presented your body as a living sacrifice.

The Great Commission Reread

Here is what He says: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and teaching them to observe all that I command." When you hear or read those verses, what jumps off the page at you? You typically read it like this: "Go." The idea is that we almost think this is exclusively a missions verse — and by the way, it is — but our emphasis as we read it falls entirely on "Go." The assumption becomes that you aren't really evangelizing unless you have a passport, a visa, shots, and pills, and you're going somewhere they don't speak your language. That is how we tend to read this.

Now, there is clearly a place for that. James Boyce writes, "The New Testament indicates that there were at least ten appearances of the risen Lord, plus another one some years later to the apostle Paul. In eight of these appearance accounts, Christ gives an explicit commission, and in five, He commands His followers to go into the world and to preach the gospel." Boyce continues, applying this to you and me: "These words are for all Jesus' disciples, of course, not only for the apostles. They are for you if you've turned from sin to trust Jesus Christ alone for your salvation and have become His disciple. If you have, then you are to work with other Christians to lead people to faith through the preaching and teaching of the gospel, bringing them into the fellowship of the church. What is wonderful about all this is that Jesus promised He will be with us as we do it. We witness in a hostile environment, but as we do, we know that Jesus will be with us and will bless our efforts."

When we typically read this verse, we land on "go" — but that is not the main thrust. The main thrust is to make disciples. The underlying thought is, *as you are going*. So if someone comes to us and says, "I want to go be a missionary to the Philippines," the first question we should ask them is, "How is your evangelistic and missionary work right here in Gilbert?" They say, "No, you don't understand — I want to be a missionary to the Philippines." And the response is, we are not going to send you to be a missionary to the Philippines until you have been a missionary to Gilbert. Why in the world, if you have this passion to share Christ, would you have to wait until you are in a foreign land? That doesn't make any sense.

The way this verse reads is this: as you are going — as you're going to the market, as you're going to the club, as you're going to the store, as you're going to work, as you're going to school, as you're going about your daily life — be preaching this gospel. Be making disciples. Preach the gospel to them so that the Spirit of God begins to apply the Word of God to their hearts and their lives are transformed. We are to go into the world; as you go, wherever you go, you are to preach the gospel and make disciples. That is the Great Commission.

Disciples Who Make Disciples

One author writes this: "Jesus' supreme command, therefore, is for those who are His disciples to become His instruments for making disciples of all nations. Jesus' earthly ministry was to make disciples for Himself, and that is the ministry of His people. So truly, Jesus' followers become fishers of men, Matthew 4:19. Those who become His disciples are to themselves become disciple-makers. The mission of the early church was to make disciples, and that is still Christ's mission for His church."

So here is what you are to be about, and what I am to be about, and what we should collectively be about when we come together under the banner of East Valley Bible Church. As we go, we preach this gospel. God begins to bless it in some instances, applies the Spirit of God to the Word of God, and lives are transformed. And then we take those people — what happens next? We are to baptize them.

The Question of Baptism

Let me ask what could be an awkward question for some of you. Have you been baptized? There are a number of you who just took communion, and when you took communion, here is what you said: Jesus is my Lord, Jesus is my Savior, Jesus is my Master, I am a follower of His. If you are a follower of His, the initial act of obedience to —

Baptism as Obedience

That gospel is to be baptized. Have you been baptized? If the answer is no, you have a problem, and it is a serious problem, because this is not optional. This is a command. How serious is it? John MacArthur writes some pretty serious words: "The person who is unwilling to be baptized is at best a disobedient believer, and if he persists in his unwillingness, there is reason to doubt the genuineness of his faith. If you are unwilling to comply with the simple act of obedience in the presence of fellow believers, you will hardly be willing to stand up for Christ before an unbelieving world."

I understand that for some of you, you were converted a long time ago and never baptized, and now there is some embarrassment attached to this. There is some pride that is in the way. That all the more ought to tell you that what you are engaged in is sin, because your pride and embarrassment are in the way.

Here is what happens in our baptism services. These windows swing open, and there is a baptismal back there. The drums go out of the way, and we have a time of baptism. We baptize through immersion. Baptism is not for salvation. These are people who know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and we ask them to share their testimony — to tell us how they came to know Christ. Then we say, based on your profession of faith, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We take that person and immerse them into the water. It is a picture of death — a picture of the old creature that dies — and as they come out of the water, there is new life, a rebirth, a new creature in Christ. That is the symbolism behind baptism.

Teaching All That Christ Commands

So He says you are to go, you are to make disciples, you are to baptize them, and you are to teach them. This is present in all of our lives. This is what you are about, what we are about. We go, we make disciples — that is not the end of it. We baptize them — that is not the end of it. Now we walk together and we learn.

What we need to learn is always going to be changing, but the way Jesus says it is this: "Observe all that I command you." That is what He wants us to teach. What has He commanded us? James Boyce suggests six things we should be teaching — six things you should set as objectives in your life so that you know them and can teach them to others.

A High View of Scripture

The first thing is a high view of Scripture — an understanding that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. It is infallible. We need to come back to this again and again, because we live in a world where even church people are saying, "Well, it's not all the Word of God. It contains truth." To say it contains truth is a partial truth. Certainly it contains truth, but the statement is much bigger than that, isn't it?

It does not merely contain truth — it is truth. If I say it contains truth, that immediately raises one very important question: what part is true, and how would you know? At East Valley Bible Church, we believe this is the infallible Word of God. It is the starting point, and frankly the ending point, of all discussions — the end of all arguments.

You and I can sit around and you can say, "I believe this, I think this, I feel this, I hope for this," and we can have that discussion. But if the Bible addresses the issue, that settles it. This is the final authority in our lives. So the first thing we teach is a high view of Scripture.

The Sovereignty of God in Salvation

The second thing, in Boyce's view, is the sovereignty of God, especially in salvation. Boyce writes, "We need to capture a new, elevated sense of who God is, particularly in regard to His grace in saving sinners." Sovereignty refers to rightful rule. To say that God is sovereign, therefore, as the Bible does, is to say that God rules in all matters in all places.

Nothing is an accident. No one catches God off guard. Moreover, as Romans 9:18 says, He does what seems best to Him — God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy. God is sovereign. God is in control. Everything that happens in your life, my life, our life as a nation, is either caused by or allowed by God. Do you believe that? That is a very important statement. If it is not true, then He is not God.

Where Was God on September 11th?

I was watching one night on PBS, and they were having a long discussion on September 11th and the spiritual ramifications of that day. They were interviewing all of these different authorities from all of these different churches. Some of these men were angry at God — asking what happened to God on September 11th, why He would cause or allow that, what He was doing. Another was saying this was simply evidence that God really is not in control, because no God would allow such a thing to take place.

The dominant question was: where was God on September 11th? The answer is, the same place He was on September 10th and September 12th — on the throne. Do you think God could not have stopped those planes from going into the World Trade Center? Of course He could have. If He could not, He is not God. You already agreed that He either causes or allows all things.

Why would He allow it? That is a different question — not the one we are discussing here. But the point stands: everything that comes into your life is either caused or allowed by Him. We are very quick to give Him credit for all the blessings — at Thanksgiving, when we gather around the table and recount the blessings of the year. Well, He is equally up to the task of taking responsibility for those difficult things that happen in your life — not sin, but those things that come into your life.

The Sovereignty of God in Salvation

We don't typically gather at Thanksgiving and say, "Father, we want to thank You for the cancer that's eaten my liver, and God, thank You for the job that we lost, and the house being repossessed tomorrow. Thank You, because You're a good God, a great God. Thank You for all Your blessings." He is God. He is sovereign, especially in salvation.

If you are a Christian today, it is not based on who you were, who you would be, what you did do, or what you might do. It is totally based on Him. You might say, "Well, wait a minute, I heard the gospel and I responded." That is fine. But why did you respond? Because He opened your eyes to see the truth.

The Depravity of Man

Here is a third thing we need to teach people: the depravity of man. Genesis 6:5 says, "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of thought and of his heart was evil at all times." Ephesians chapter 2, Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, to the believers there, and he reminds them a little bit about the résumé. He says this: "You were dead in your sins and trespasses, in which you formerly walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we all too formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath."

Sin and Its Consequences

Saturday night, I turned on the radio and heard talk radio reporting that 63% of Arizona high school seniors are sexually active. That is a lot. People were calling in, freaking out about a thousand different things. One man was saying, "What are we going to do?" His answer was: we have got to give condoms to all the kids, and we have got to educate them, because they don't know what they're doing.

It seems to me they know exactly what they are doing. That is why they are doing it. They do it, they like it, it is fun. And giving them condoms is simply removing the consequence. That is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Now, this is going to sound harsh — don't take it out of context — but let them get pregnant, and let them get the diseases. If you remove the consequence from the sin, then you don't reap what you sow. If you have a little kid and you say, "Johnny, you do that one more time and I'm going to spank you," and he does it and you don't follow through, that kid is never going to think straight. Removing the consequence from the sin is the hardest thing to avoid in child rearing, especially as children get older.

I remember a man coming to me and saying his daughter had told him she was going to have sex, and she wanted him to give her birth control pills. He asked whether he should. He mentioned I was the fifth person he had asked. I went home, thought about it, and came back the next day with this answer: no, you do not give her the birth control pills. Four fairly high-profile Christians before me had all said to give them to her. My reasoning was simple: you would be removing the consequence. First, you don't even know for certain she will follow through — she may think better of it. Second, the fact that she came to her father at all shows she has some trepidation about this, and by providing the pills you would be contributing to her promiscuity.

It would be like a friend coming to me and saying, "I'm going to have an affair with my secretary. I know you'll be on vacation — can I use your house?" And I say, "Oh, I don't approve of that, but here are the keys." Now I am complicit, even while claiming to be against it. She needed to face the consequence of her choice. And she did, by the way, get pregnant.

What Is Really Wrong with Man

The problem with those 63% of teenagers is not that they are uneducated. Here is the problem: they are sinners, and they love sin. That is what is wrong with man. People like to say that deep down inside, a person is basically a good guy. No — deep down inside, he is awful.

I had a mutual friend who used to defend another man by saying, "I know he acts like a jerk, but deep down inside, he's a good guy." But why would you say that? We had never had a single experience where he was not a jerk. Why would you assume there is something good buried down inside?

Someone once put it this way: we are all like an onion — you just peel it away, and deep down inside, we are basically good people. No. Stick with the onion illustration. You peel it away, your eyes cry, and you keep thinking, "This is worse than I thought it was." That is man. That is the condition of man. And you have got to get that into your own thinking.

Salvation by Grace Alone

That is the message you need to teach people. So when you are watching something and you say, "Well, there is a little bit of God in all of us," no — that is not what Paul says. Paul says you were one of the children of wrath. You were a child of disobedience. Now you are not anymore. What those kids need is the gospel and a transformed life. The problem there is spiritual.

You need to teach salvation by grace alone. That was the good news for me. When Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary," He is not saying you are just tired from a long day's work. He is saying those of you who are weary from trying to keep all the rules and all the regulations and all the religious rituals. God hates religion. God does not want you bogged down in trying to do all of this.

When they say the gospel is good news, it truly was to me. When I heard it, I had to go back and say, "Give it to me again — are you sure I heard this right? Is that what you said?" You are telling me there is nothing I can do to make God happy. That is right. You are telling me there is no sin I can commit that God would not forgive. That is right. You are telling me there is nothing I am ever going to be able to do to please God and go to heaven. That is right. But He died so I could have eternal life. That is the deal. That is grace. There is the message.

Eternal Security

You are saved by grace, and you cannot lose that salvation. Jesus is speaking in John 10, and here is what He says: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand."

Here is the picture: God has you in His hand, in His control, and nothing can shake Him loose. When I was a kid, four or five years old, my grandpa used to take his hand, put a quarter in it, and say, "If you can open my hand, you can have the quarter." It was a giant waste of my time. Here is this fifty-year-old guy, strong as an ox, and there I am. He would play with me — he would let me get one finger open and another one over here, and then he would pull it down so I could even see the quarter. The guy was out to torment me. And then the minute I would almost do it, he would pull it shut. I had no chance. The chance of me getting that quarter was zero.

That is the picture. God has control of you. What can separate us from the love of Christ? That is what Paul writes in Romans 8. Nothing — height, depth, nothing, no created thing. You are secure. If you are truly a Christian sitting here today, you are as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there. Nothing separates you. Nothing can break that bond. That is extraordinary news, and it shatters religion.

Now, that does not give cause for license. There are going to be some people thinking, "Wait a minute — I can do whatever I want and I am forgiven? I will just go ask for forgiveness." That is sin, and at that point you need to question your salvation. True freedom deepens your love for Him. When you talk about unconditional love, there it is.

There Is Still Work to Do

We are also teaching people that there is still work to do. There is still grace through faith, but there is still work that needs to be done. If all God wanted to do was get you to heaven, He would have taken you there the moment you came in repentance and faith. But He is working — God is working all over this world.

I have a number of books going right now, and one is on China. It suggests there may be 100 million Christians in China, which would mean there are more Christians in China than in any other nation in the world. And essentially all of that happened without any foreign missionaries. There is work to do. God is working all over, and you are part of it. Paul writes this in Ephesians chapter 2 — right after saying, "It is a gift of God so no one can boast" — he says God is going to use you. God will use you.

The Command and the Call

So here is point one under this idea that evangelism is not optional: Christ gives us a clear command, and it is that as we go we are to be sharing this truth, making disciples, and passing on teaching.

Next week, the question is: Are you answering the call? How are you responding to it? If that is true — and I am guessing everyone here is going to say, yes, absolutely, cannot deny that, cannot argue with it, there it is — then as you review the week you just had, you would expect to see two or three people you talked to about Christ on Monday, and then another four or five on Tuesday. How come that does not seem to be the norm? How come when I say that, something feels off? There is a disconnect there, and we are going to look at that. There are some pretty interesting statistics from the marketplace, and we will take a look at those.

Then next week, we will address the message itself. When you go out to share this truth, what is it you should say? What is your message to this world? We will look at both of those things next week.

Father, thank You for this truth. We pray for those faithful stewards. We pray for those who head to the Baha today, that You would protect them, guide them, and use them. And God, for all of us as we leave this place and enter the mission field You have for us.