Evangelism Is Not Optional, Part 3
Tom Shrader concludes a three-part series on evangelism by grounding believers in their identity as ambassadors for Christ, drawing on 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans 10 to show that the message of reconciliation has been entrusted to every Christian. He works through ten practical principles for how to engage the world with the gospel, emphasizing that evangelism is not optional, that words and lifestyle are inseparable, and that believers must be present in the world without being assimilated by it. The teaching closes with an encouragement to relax in the work, remembering that salvation belongs to God and the ambassador's job is simply to share the message faithfully.
“We're not into behavior modification, we're into heart change. We're not just trying to get people who are strung out on drugs clean, we're trying to see God save them.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Evangelism Is Not Optional
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 47 min
Themes: evangelism, sharing your faith, obedience, ambassador, reconciliation, witnessing, gospel, being in the world, afraid to share faith, new believer, feeling unqualified to witness, young adult, struggling with obedience, everyday christian, feeling overwhelmed by evangelism, believer wanting to grow
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, Mark 16:15, Romans 10:12-15, Isaiah 52:7, 2 Timothy 2:4, Matthew 28:19-20, John 1:14, Matthew 5, Acts 17:16, John 20:21
Theological Themes: soteriology, salvation belongs to god, missiology, great commission, ambassador for christ, ministry of reconciliation, 2 corinthians 5, romans 10
Full Transcript
Marching Orders
Open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We will be in a variety of passages of Scripture this morning, but we will spend some time there. This is the third part of a three-part series — a mini-series, really a parenthetical insert into a larger study — titled "Evangelism Is Not Optional."
Evangelism is a mandatory part of the Christian life. The Christian life is not like a smorgasbord — a buffet where you walk through and say, "I'll have the green beans, but I don't want the corn." We pick and choose, but the Christian life has components to it, calls to obedience, and those are not optional for us. Part of that list of commands and mandates is evangelism. If we were to sit and describe the normal Christian life, it is to include evangelism.
Here is the roadmap we have followed for the last couple of weeks. The first week, we saw that this is what Christ commands. Then we asked: Are you following this call? Are you heeding this call? What is the message that you share? This week we combine the last two points together, and the title this morning is really: "Your Marching Orders" and "Be Prepared."
When I hear the term "marching orders," I think of something military — instructions so powerful that when you hear them, they motivate you and move you. You are soldiers on active duty, and you are to be free from the entanglements of this life so you can please the one who enlisted you. As Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 4: "No soldier in active duty entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so he may please the one who enlisted him." Who enlisted you? The Creator God of the universe, who before the foundations of the earth knew not only that there would be you, but that there would come a point in time when you would be saved and would now be an active soldier in that army.
Sixty years ago today was the invasion at Normandy — D-Day — arguably the greatest event of the twentieth century and certainly one of the most important. And yet what I am going to encourage you to do in the battle I would set before you is, in my mind, more significant than even that. The next time you hear "marching orders" and "be prepared," I want you to be thinking not of Patton and his charge to his troops, but of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Message Entrusted to Us
Here were the marching orders, in Mark chapter 16, verse 15: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." God had sent His Son, Jesus, into the world. Jesus was the Savior of the world. That is the uniqueness about Christ, and it is the uniqueness about the Christian faith — what separates Christianity from every other world religion.
Virtually every other world religion is a story of man somehow seeking God. Orthodox Christianity is the account of God seeking man. God determined not only that He would send His Son into this world, but that His Son was the way of salvation and there was no other way. And this most important message has been entrusted to you and me.
God could have, I suppose, simply had a giant loudspeaker from which He broadcast this message from the heavens across the whole earth. Or He could have sent angels who appeared to people and
The Call to Evangelism
Even as the angel appears to Peter and says he needs to go to Joppa, the angel could have simply gone there himself — but he didn't. God chose a person, and He chooses you. He gives you this absolutely mandatory call, a call to evangelism.
Paul writes this in Romans 10: "There is no distinction between Jew and Greek." There is no distinction anymore between gender, race, background, or culture, not as it relates to Christ. "For the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him. For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved."
What does it mean to be saved? It means to be delivered — delivered from the bondage of sin and the consequence of sin. You call upon the name of the Lord, you believe Jesus is who He said He was and that He will do what He said He would do, and at that moment you are saved. Lots of people are calling on false gods, thinking they will be saved if they can just get this, or smoke this, or touch this, or acquire this, or achieve this. But salvation belongs only to those who call upon the name of the Lord.
The Logic of the Sent Preacher
Paul then asks a series of rhetorical questions beginning in verse 14: "How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things." That final line is a quotation from Isaiah 52:7.
See the progression there. They have to call upon the name of the Lord, but they are not going to do that unless they believe in Him. They are not going to believe in Him unless they have heard about Him. They are not going to hear if there is no preacher. And there will be no preacher unless the preacher understands that he is sent. That is your message and mine — that we go into the world with that sacred charge, those divine marching orders, to preach the gospel.
How is somebody possibly going to believe if they have never heard this? Those are your marching orders. The people in your office ought to be saying, "How beautiful are those feet." Paul is talking about the messenger who carries this truth, this gospel.
You Are an Ambassador
You have a title, and you may not know it. Look at 2 Corinthians 5:20: "Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ." President Bush recently appointed former Senator John Danforth as ambassador to the United Nations. We have ambassadors all around the world who represent this country — and you and I are ambassadors as well, not appointed by the President of the United States, but by the Creator God of the universe, the God who spoke this world into existence.
Our citizenship, the Bible says, is no longer here on earth, no longer in the U.S.A., but in heaven. We carry dual passports. This is not our home. Peter says we are all aliens, sojourners passing through this place. We have been sent by Christ into this world, with heaven as our true home.
In a very real way, you and I as Christians are to be homesick for a place we have never been and never seen. The longer you live, the more homesick you become. You begin to understand that heaven is now populated with people you love. We are to persevere and not grow weary, and yet after a period of time there is a yearning to be there — not just to be in the presence of God, which should be our driving motive, but to be free from sin and from all the darkness we see around us.
The Ambassador's Job Description
What does an ambassador do? Here is the all-encompassing job description: an ambassador represents his nation and travels in the name of that nation. When in a foreign land, all the citizens of that land are watching and often evaluating your country based on how you act and how you behave. You and I navigate our way through this world in the name of Jesus Christ. That is a daunting proposition — but remember what He said: "I am with you always." You will have power, and you will be His witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
It is a hard world out there. Not everyone will love what you say — in fact, most will hate it. It is difficult work. It is relentless work. It is a job that never gets finished, never gets completed. But that is all right, because He is with you always.
An ambassador also guards the nation's interest in a foreign land and looks after its protected citizens. We are in this together. We love God's people and have a special kinship with those who share Jesus Christ as Savior and who have the same Spirit dwelling within them. There is a connectedness there, and we protect one another.
An ambassador also resides only temporarily in that land. When we send an ambassador to France, we send a citizen of the United States who is temporarily dwelling there, representing our interests. We are not looking for that ambassador to become so comfortable and so assimilated into the culture that he no longer wants to come home. We are not looking for him to start thinking entirely like the people of that land.
Evangelism Is Not Optional
We can create in this world such a place, and love it so much, that we want to stay here in our temporary dwelling rather than our permanent dwelling, which is in heaven. We are to act in a way that does not discredit His nation. So if you go back to verse 20, we are ambassadors for Christ. What is our job? It is as though God were entreating through us. Here is the message: "We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." That is our assignment. That is our message.
Take a look at verses 18 and 19, and spend some time on the second part of 2 Corinthians chapter 5. He said, "Now all these things are from God." What is that? It is all the things that have preceded it. We are new creatures in Christ. The old things have passed away. We are born again. Still the same old earth suit, but a whole new creature inside. We think differently, talk differently, act differently. Our values are different. Our agenda is no longer our own — what do I want — but what does God want? What does God say is important?
"Now all these things are from God who reconciled us as believers to Himself through Christ, and then He gave us a work, a job. He gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the word of reconciliation." That is our job. We are ambassadors for Christ going into the world to communicate a message of reconciliation.
Man and God are at war. You and I come into this world, as does every person who has ever lived, separated from God, divided from God. We have turned our backs. There was that point in the Garden of Eden where Adam walked in the cool of the day with the Lord, and Adam sinned. Adam said, no thank you, I will do it my way. He spoke for all of us, and he declared war on God. There is now a peace that has been extended to man — not man extending peace to God, but God extending peace to man through the Lord Jesus Christ.
He has done that in your life. When you took communion, here is what you acknowledged: that you and God have been reconciled through Christ, that you are a new creature, that you are His. A reconciliation has taken place, and you now have peace with God. And because you have peace with God, you now have the peace of God — a peace that transcends all understanding. Your life is different. The people around you cannot even understand what is going on. You have love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control in ways you never had before.
Our Assignment: The Ministry of Reconciliation
He says to take that message into the world. He tells us to take the ministry of reconciliation to the world. We are there to be a mouthpiece for God, declaring that there is peace with God through Christ and no other way. That is your job, and mine.
So let me ask this question: how should we do this? How should we go into the world and preach the gospel to all creation? What should be our demeanor, our mindset, and our behavior as we embark on this extraordinarily important and, in a vital sense, vital mission? There are ten things to work through here, and this list could go on and on, but let us work our way through them.
Ten Ways to Approach Evangelism
First: evangelism is not optional. This point has been made again and again. This is the mandate on your life. This is the call on your life — to go into the world. We saw it in Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 and 20: "As you go, make disciples and baptize them and teach them." This is not optional behavior. This is the norm. If you are not in the process of living a life filled with evangelism, witnessing, and being a display case for what God is doing in your life, if that is not normative, something is wrong. This is not optional. It is indisputable.
Second: evangelism is both an individual and a team activity. In preparing this lesson, in conversations through the week, one person made this exact point — that evangelism is not just individual but a team activity — and that is exactly right. You are to be about this in your individual lives, and we are also to be about this collectively. Do not develop the mindset that says, "I don't have the gift of evangelism. Some people are just wired that way. I have a gift of teaching, but not evangelism." Do not let that become an excuse. You will be out talking to someone, and all of a sudden it will be time to talk about Jesus, and you will say, "Wait — I just took a spiritual gifts test, and evangelism is not my gift."
The Church's Role vs. Individual Responsibility
Some people just eat, sleep, and drink evangelism — everywhere they go, they're talking about Jesus. But all of you individually are to be about this. So when a church comes together, here is the way I would describe it. The church comes together and says, "We want to reach Intel. What are we as a church going to do to reach Intel?" Let me help you out: nothing. We are not going to develop an Intel strategy.
What we are going to do is say to all of you who work at Intel: you have infiltrated enemy territory. You have been dropped behind enemy lines. Now you evangelize them. You are about this in your individual lives, and periodically we will come together collectively, and there may be a project or two, but it flows from the way we live as a body.
I have people who come onto this campus and look around, not as Christians — just watching. And there is joy there, and there is friendliness. People seem happy. Families seem okay. Singles seem normal. Things seem all right. And they think, "This is a good place. Tell me more." It becomes an opportunity to talk to them about Jesus and who He is. It is very important to understand this is not an either-or arrangement. It is not you as the Lone Ranger out there, or let the body do it. It is both.
Your Actions and Words Cannot Be Separated
Here is the third thing: your actions will not be separated from your words. What you say and how you live are absolutely and inseparably linked together. The message and the messenger cannot be separated — and they will not be separated.
You have heard this before, because we have talked about it many times: the great philosopher Kierkegaard one day encountered a Christian who shared his faith with him, and Kierkegaard's response was, "If you want me to believe in your Redeemer, you must look a little more redeemed." Even the world understands this. Even the world out there says, "If you claim to be a Christian, there ought to be evidence in your life."
I hadn't been a Christian very long when this happened to me. When I was converted, it was fairly radical, and I certainly wasn't shy about it with the people around me — not in the office. One day I was standing at the front door of the office, lots of people going in and out, and I was in a discussion with a guy, trying to make a point. I thought that a couple of particular words, if I just zinged them in, would really emphasize the point. So I said them — just as a person came around the corner that I had been talking to about Jesus. That person looked at me and said, "Oh, I didn't know that's how Christians talk."
Mike Barber played tight end in the NFL for many years — an All-Pro player. One day he was coming over the middle, and he and a linebacker got into it, and he gave him a little shot. The guy said, "Wait a minute, I thought you were a Christian." And Barber said, "I am. Pray for me — I've got a lot of growing to do." You cannot separate these two things. You cannot go around talking to people about Jesus and then have no evidence of it in your life.
This manifests itself in so many different ways. If you are single — and I do not mean to belabor this, but you really see it here — if you are a single man or a single woman going around telling your friends "Jesus changed my life," and you are still sexually active, there is a disconnect. Anything you would not do with your brother or your sister is too far. That is simply what it is.
I have heard many troubling things over the years, but I once confronted a guy after hearing he was sleeping with his girlfriend. He said, "Yes, and I can't tell you how bad I feel about it. Every time after we make love, I jump out of bed and confess my sin." There is a fundamental disconnect there. He was also trying to witness to her. How can you witness to someone when you have discredited the message? You cannot separate these two things.
Holy Worldliness: Getting Into Contact With People
Here is the fourth thing: if you are not in contact with people, you will not impact people. I came across a phrase this week that I love — "holy worldliness." That is what Jesus describes. The night before He died, He was praying to the Father and said, *"Father, as You sent Me into this world, I send them into the world."* And Jesus said it again: *"Peace be with you. As the Father sent Me, I also send you."*
You are sent into this world. You are to go out into the world. You are not to stay in some sort of holy huddle. To return to point four: if you are not in contact with people, you will not impact people.
Years ago we were in Colorado. A friend of ours has a ranch up there — a really wonderful place, about 300 to 350 acres. The day we arrived, he said, "We're rebuilding the barn where the horses are." I said, "I'm not building a barn. I came to eat, sleep, and watch TV." He said, "Schrades, I didn't expect you to do anything — I just wanted you to know I'll be building the barn." I said, "Perfect. Just keep down the pounding." They had vehicles, and we would go out riding horses.
The Danger of Hiding in Your Cocoon
Some of you are like those ground squirrels. You come out of your little Christian cocoon long enough to look around real fast, then run over to another hole, duck right in, pop out somewhere else, and duck right in again. But Jesus says, "I have sent them into the world." There is great tension here between being in the world and being of the world. I don't know how you can possibly communicate to the world if you don't identify with it and infiltrate it — but you can become so close to the world that, to borrow some Alistair Begg language, you haven't just identified with the world, you've been assimilated into it.
So the question becomes: how do I relate to this person at work, or this person in my neighborhood? How do I let them know that everything's okay, explain things to them, understand their life, spend time with them, get skin on skin with them — and yet at the same time not become one of them? There is a lot of tension in that. You have a whole group of people who reason that they need to relate to the world and spend time with people, and they become so much like the world that they are now assimilated into it. They have an audience, but they never give a message. Then you have a whole other group of people on the other side who think it's too scary and too dirty out there, so they never engage the world at all. They have an incredible message, but they have no audience. Somehow those two things have to come together.
Identity Theft — Spiritual and Otherwise
I cannot be in the world to the point where it steals my identity. That thought struck me this week when I looked a few things up online. Identity theft is currently costing people and businesses in this country about $50 billion a year. Three hundred million hours are spent every year resolving issues related to identity theft. If someone steals your credit cards and uses them, it takes you on average about 30 hours to work it out — and if they use your identity to establish entirely new accounts, it takes about 60 hours to resolve.
Here is something else that was interesting: 15% of the identity thefts reported were used in non-financial ways. The number one non-financial use was when someone was stopped for a traffic violation or a criminal charge and gave the officer a stolen identity instead of their own. That is exactly what I am saying spiritually. I can become so identified with the world that they have robbed my identity as an ambassador for Christ and an alien in this world, and I have become so much like them that there is no distinction left.
Jesus as the Model for Holy Worldliness
Here is the fifth point: Jesus gives us an extraordinarily helpful model for this. John writes in chapter one, verse 14, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of mercy." God comes into this world in the flesh. The invisible God becomes visible, and He doesn't simply pop in, drop a message, and blow out. He comes and He stays. He lives, He eats, He sleeps, He drinks. He hangs with people. He is like us in every way except sin.
He dialogued with the religious leaders, though sparks were often flying, and He also hung around with the average person. He talked to the woman at the well. He talked to Zacchaeus, to the leper, to the children. He spoke on a plane and at a level that people could understand. He is a magnificent role model. Jesus said as He walked this earth, "I am the light of the world." But we sometimes forget that in Matthew chapter five, in the Beatitudes, He also says to His followers, "You are the light of the world."
We can make a distinction between those two statements. When He says, "I am the light of the world," He is saying He is the source of light, the source of revelation and truth. When He says you are the light, think of it this way — He is like the sun that produces the light, and you and I are more like the moon. We reflect the light. We are not the light itself. That is the charge He has given us. He is the great role model for what might be called holy worldliness: "As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world."
Sent Into Your World
Take that last word out of that sentence — "world" — and replace it with something that relates directly to you. "I have sent you to Motorola." "I have sent you to the Good Egg." And that brings up a very important point: you and I have a witness whether we intentionally want one or not. You are a witness right now.
The Witness We Leave Behind
It may be a lousy witness. It may be a good witness. It may be neutral. Right now we have a witness at every place we work — Intel, the City of Phoenix, the Gilbert Fire Department, the Gilbert Police Department, any of the businesses you see around.
I was at the Good Egg right after they opened, right over here. We were talking and the guy asked, "What do you do?" I said I was involved in a church. He said, "What church?" I said, "East Valley Bible Church." He said, "The church right over here?" I said yes, and asked if he knew it. He said, "Yeah — that's the one that's right now arguing about whether the music should be at the beginning or after the message." That was his identification of us. When I said East Valley Bible Church, what came to his mind was an internal war.
I'm not beating you up, because there are plenty of people who love this church and hear great things about it. But that was how this man identified us. How do you think God is going to reach Mesquite High School? Through the Christian faculty and the Christian students who are there. It is the same with all of these places right around us.
Let me say it again: you are to infiltrate this world and have a relationship with it — not be isolated from it, but not be so identified with it that you are assimilated into it.
Address the Condition, Not Just the Behavior
Jesus is a very helpful model in this process. Let me give you five more things in the time we have left.
The first is this: address a person's condition, not just their behavior. There is a tendency in evangelism to hone in on a person's particular sin and just hammer them with it — you're drinking, you're doing drugs, you're doing whatever it is, knock it off, you have a problem. But that is not their root problem. The root problem, if they are not a Christian, is that they are a sinner.
If you are talking about that specific sin rather than the fact that they are a sinner, they may go get sober and come back and say, "Well, I guess I'm done now because I'm not drinking anymore." No — you missed the actual problem. Do not get sidetracked in behavioral discussion.
We are not into behavior modification; we are into heart change. We are not just trying to get people who are strung out on drugs clean — we are trying to see God save them. We are not trying to stamp out fornication and adultery; we are trying to have people who are engaging in sex outside of God's design come and repent. Be careful in these conversations that you do not end up talking about a sin rather than about the sinner. The core issue is not a particular sin — the core issue is that the person is a sinner.
Act Normal
Here is the next thing: act normal. When I am out in the marketplace — at a Priority Living event or somewhere similar — people will say to me, "You know what I like about you? You're normal. You're like a normal person." You need to understand that the people around you genuinely think Christians are odd. They are struck that you have a brain, struck that there is an intellect. They expect you to be sour and somber, beating yourself in repentance, crawling on glass — all of those things. Be normal.
That is exactly what Paul does in Acts chapter 17. Paul understood the culture, and you have to understand the culture you live in. If you do not understand the culture, you will never communicate to it. If you cannot take what God says in His Word and recognize that the people around you are not speaking that language, you will use words nobody understands to answer questions nobody is asking. You cannot get more irrelevant than that — speaking a foreign language about things nobody cares about.
Paul comes into Athens in Acts 17. Here is what it says: *"While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he was beholding a city full of idols."* Paul walks in and there are statues to gods everywhere. He finds a statue to the unknown God, and when he finally gets his chance to speak to the intelligentsia of Athens, he does not walk in and say, "Repent, you brood of vipers." He says, "I was walking around today and I saw a statue to an unknown God. Would it be alright if I told you about that unknown God?" And they said yes. You see how that works?
He then quotes the poets of the day and relates the gospel to them in terms they can grasp. He does not alter the gospel, but he puts it in a form they can understand and get their arms around. You see this all through Paul's life. When he encounters the Jew, he is quoting the Old Testament. When he encounters the Gentile, he is engaging with philosophy and Greek thought.
Evangelism Becomes Easy When It Is Expected
Here is the next point: evangelism is easy once it is expected of you. One of the guys made this comment recently. He is down at the University of Arizona, and I asked him how it was going. He said it was pretty easy.
When Sharing Becomes Expected
Once you are in there and known as the guy who shares the gospel, they expect it of you. It is just expected. This is like the old Lay's potato chip — once you eat one, you cannot help but go back for more. Once God touches your heart, opens your eyes, and lets you have this experience with people, you see Him work in your life, and you want more and more. Pretty soon, it is expected of you.
As I grew in my faith, I would sit in meetings where someone would let some language fly, then look over and say, "I'm sorry, Schrazer, I shouldn't talk like that in front of you. Pardon my French." I would think, well, I don't know French, and I got every word of that, so it wasn't French. But all of a sudden you become "the preacher guy," and you just live with that. It actually makes things even easier, because now they expect that of you.
And here is something else — now they will seek you out. When their kid gets sick or they have a tragedy in their life, they are going to come looking for you. You don't go snorting cocaine with someone one night and then discuss the deep philosophical questions of life the next. They are going to come back asking, "Where's the preacher guy?"
Acceptance, Ambivalence, and Rejection
Two more things to understand. First, you will experience acceptance, ambivalence, and rejection. You are going to get all sorts of reactions. Some people are going to believe, some are going to say let's talk another time, and some are just going to blow you off and reject you outright.
Let me offer a little hope here, because I have had people say their friends don't like them anymore. That is not true — their friends like them. They have proven it. They used to go to the movies with you, to the ball games with you, and barbecue with you. They like you. They just don't like the Jesus they see in you. And just as they rejected Him, they will reject you.
Relax — This Is God's Deal
Lastly, relax. This is God's deal anyway. You cannot save a soul — that is what God does. So you don't have to change the gospel, you don't have to worry about being offensive, you don't have to try to outwit or outsmart anyone. You just tell the truth in love and grace. Sometimes God works and sometimes He doesn't. Sometimes you will see the fruit, and most of the time you never will. But that is okay, because at that point you are a successful ambassador — your job is simply to share it.
Two Closing Thoughts
Two thoughts before we close. Number one: people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. They don't care about you unloading on them. You just took an institute class, you are filled with knowledge, and so you meet the first person on the street and say, "Do you know Jesus? Do you know the term substitutionary atonement?" They don't care. What they are asking is: Do you love me? Do you care about me? Will you listen to me?
The second thing: there are many methods of evangelism and they do change, but there is only one message and it never changes. And I would add to this — be yourself. Some of you are going to approach these things differently from others. We can give you information and that can be helpful, but ultimately you live this. It ought to happen naturally.
The Woman at the Well
Let me close by going back to the woman at the well. The minute she understood who Jesus was, she was off and running. We ought to be able to see this same thing in ourselves. If every person in this church is sharing their faith on a regular basis over the course of a year, it seems reasonable — and it certainly tracks with my experience — that God is going to bless one of those encounters and that person is going to be saved. And when they are saved, the natural thing is going to be for them to ask, "Where do you go to church?" You will say East Valley Bible Church, and they will say, "Can I go with you?"
If that happens, this church should numerically double this year. That is not a goal, by the way — that is just a byproduct. We should never have to announce a growth goal. We should simply be asking what we are going to do, because we already know we are going to grow. We have people who are growing, and part of growing is sharing their faith. This is the norm. You should not be walking around saying, "Wow, they really share their faith — that's incredible." No. That is the norm.
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Father, thank You for this Word. Thank You for the Word that You have placed in our hearts and the truth that we find in it. Father, we pray that as we close this time, we would be reminded that we are citizens not just of this world, but citizens of heaven. Father, we cannot wait until we one day come and see the glory of the Lord. Father, thank You for Jesus. We pray in His name.