Acts 1:8 (Teaching)

[0:00] Good evening. Good evening, Rach. I would get up there, but I ain't quite got the wind that I'd hoped that I would have.

[0:17] Those of you that don't know, I had a double bypass three weeks ago. And I asked Vern not to scratch me off of the list for speakers for this.

[0:30] And I asked my wife and him both to be praying for me, the good Lord that still let me speak. And so here I am, and I'm not going to complain about God answering the prayer for me.

[0:45] I appreciate the good Lord, and I'm in a whole lot better shape than I was three weeks ago. So y'all continue praying, I told Vern during our little intermission there, the next time I'm going to speak first, because he'd done most of the scripture I was going to use.

[1:04] But that's okay. During the fellowship time there, I was also going through my mind somewhat, how I could kind of change it up so it don't sound like y'all are hearing the same sermon twice.

[1:18] And I'm really not going to preach tonight as much as just discuss evangelism. What evangelism is and what evangelism is not.

[1:31] Because what it is not really and truly is just as important as what it is. If you really consider it in the book of Acts, chapter one, we see Lord Jesus, just before His ascension, in Acts in chapter one, I'll begin in the first verse.

[2:00] It says, the former treaties I have made, have I made, Otheophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which He was taken up, after that He threw the Holy Ghost to give commandments unto the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom also He shoot Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

[2:33] And being assembled together with them commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father which saith He, ye have heard of Me, for John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.

[2:53] When they therefore were come together, they asked of Him saying, Lord, without this time restore again the kingdom to Israel. And He said unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. He said, He told them, ye shall be witnesses of Me, beginning at Jerusalem. We all know the gospel began to be spread at Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem?

[3:42] Burns already touched on it a couple of different times tonight. Paul in the book of Romans in chapter one, he says that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God and salvation to the Jew first and then to the Greek, to the Jew and then to the Gentile.

[4:05] The gospel was preached to the Jews first. You can flip to Acts chapter two and you can see or you can you can flip and see that Peter preached the gospel. Under who? He preached it to a bunch of Jews, thousands of people and they were from all around. Were they not? They all spoke of a different dialect. They all spoke different languages and such, but it began with the Jews.

[4:38] Why was the gospel began with the Jews? This is something and I promise this has to do with evangelism as a whole. Who crucified Christ? We can argue this all day long. Some people will say the Jews did. Some people say the Gentiles did because it was Roman soldiers that knelt him to the cross. Some people will say Pontius Pilate did it because he had, he told Jesus himself, he said, I have the power to crucify you or I have the power to set you free. Of course we know that Christ said, you know, you'd have no power at all if it weren't given you by my father.

[5:18] But who crucified Christ? We all had our part in crucifying Christ, did we not? But it was the Jews who said, his blood be upon us and upon our children. It was the Jews that were screaming crucify and crucify them. It was the Pharisees who were Jews that were and the chief priests who were who were getting the crowd to scream crucify them who were instigating the crowd to do this.

[5:48] So we could point our fingers at the Jews all day long. We want to, but truth be known, you crucified Christ and I crucified Christ. The Jews had their part in it. The Gentiles had their part in it. Everybody had their part in it. But the gospel was preached to the Jews first. Folks, this displays the grace of God that His people who their scriptures, not the Gentiles scriptures, the Gentiles had no scriptures. The 39 books of the Old Testament were written to the Jews, they were written to the Jews and it spoke of the Jewish Messiah. We know that God promised that there would come one into the world through the Jewish nation. Salvation is of the Jews according to the scripture and we know there was one that would come from the Jewish race of people to bless the entire world. So the gospel was preached to the Jews first. They should have recognized Christ as Messiah. But they're the very ones that were screaming crucify him. But this displays the grace of God in that they should have recognized Him. Their scriptures are the ones that testified of a coming Messiah. Their scriptures in Micah chapter 5 testified of where a Messiah would be born. It testified a couple of different times in the book of Isaiah that He would be born of a virgin and so on and Psalms and so many other places in the scripture. We see these Jewish writings. We see these writings of the Hebrews and to the

[7:42] Hebrews and for the Hebrews testifying of a Messiah. And what did they do when Messiah came? They crucified Him and they wanted Him crucified. And this is a wonderful testimony to the grace of Almighty God that still, even though that was the case, even though that was the circumstance that God still kept what His word said and had the gospel preached to the Jew first, even though that was the case. But if you notice what we read there in Acts 1 and verse 8, Jesus said, you be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth. Jerusalem and Samaria and all Judea. These were Jewish territories. These were Jews, areas where Jews were concentrated in but the uttermost parts of the earth, that includes you and that includes me. That includes us Gentiles. Jesus said, you're going to go forth and you're going to be witnesses of me and folks, that is the basis of evangelism. Evangelism, too many people think that and pretend really, I won't even say think, they pretend that evangelism is going out and trying to win someone to the Baptist faith or win someone to the Presbyterian faith or win someone to reform theology or to Calvinism or to Arminianism or whatever the case is or to win them to believing that the King James Version is the only version that's available to an English speaking people. There's too many people that have the wrong idea about evangelism. I heard a missionary one time, a very good friend of mine, Delbert Gillette, missionary to Romania, say if people would quit trying to win people to a denomination and start trying to win them to Christ, we would see such a great move of God and I understand God's sovereignty. I get that God is all sovereign over all of these things and that you know if the Bible is preached that the Holy Spirit can do His job and that souls can be won to Jesus Christ but the problem is we have too many people trying to win people to Christ using the wrong thing. I've quoted it tonight and Bern has quoted it tonight that it is the gospel of Jesus Christ that is the power of God unto salvation. When I first started preaching the first couple of years I preached it discouraged me greatly that nobody seemed to be getting saved under my preaching. Nobody was coming to Alters and getting saved. Nobody was asking questions afterward. Nobody was doing this. Nobody was doing that but that is the one verse in all of this Bible that has brought me the greatest comfort and that has made me keenly aware it's not up to me that people get saved. It is my job as a called man of God to preach the gospel and if

[11:07] I preach the gospel, if I preach the good news that although man is a sinner and although he is rebellious against God and even though he is turned against God the Bible says all we like sheep have gone astray we go this way and we go that way and we sin against God and some people are out here just wallowing in sin even though that's the case if the gospel is preached souls can be saved.

[11:38] It is the power of God unto salvation the gospel of Jesus Christ is not me and not you. So all that being said in evangelistic efforts whether it be on a street corner whether it be handing out tracks whether it just be engaging people in conversation as long as the gospel is what is presented souls can be saved and that is what we're called to do and when Jesus Christ here said told these people he said the power of the Holy Ghost will come upon you and you shall be witnesses of me. He should be witnesses of me. Folks that is what preaching the gospel is.

[12:24] We must preach the gospel and when we preach the gospel when we give the gospel to people when we give it out we are witnessing Christ to those people. We cannot preach ourselves and we cannot preach our churches we cannot preach our as I've already said our denomination. Burns already said tonight that strong theology is important in that but folks the simple gospel message is that man is a sinner but God is a wonderful and a mighty and a powerful Savior. That's the gospel message and even though man is a sinner God is that Savior and he is the only Savior for all of mankind.

[13:14] He's the only one that's available. He's the only one that can do anything but if we go out and we share the gospel with people once again whether it's street evangelism whether it's church evangelism some of the greatest evangelistic efforts that are opportunities I should say that we can have are within churches. Again Burns already brought up tonight we cannot assume that everyone that sits in church services Sunday after Sunday or midweek after midweek we cannot assume that everybody's saved. That's a dangerous spot for us to get into. We preach the gospel message each time we stand we might preach it from different places in the in within the Bible we can preach it from the New Testament we can preach it from the Old Testament and don't tell me that nobody can get saved by preaching from the Old Testament because I'll point you to a man in Acts there there's a certain unit that was preached to from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament that got saved. We can preach the gospel from anywhere within these pages if we preach Christ and we preach him crucified we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ that is the power of God under salvation it's not it's not within me to save anyone what did Christ say in the great commission the great commission was was cross telling his disciples to go out and be evangelists really and truly that's what it was what did he say he didn't say go out and make baptism he didn't say go out and and make pastors or make deacons or make this or make that he said go out and make disciples go out and make disciples we cannot make converts only God can do that only God can convert a soul through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit only he can do that but

[15:23] Christ gave us in the great commission when he said go forth into all the earth and preach the gospel to every living creature baptizing them the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Ghost he said go and make disciples make followers how are we to do that by doing exactly as cross said here in action chapter one a witnessing of him we witness of his goodness we witness of his graciousness we witness of the death the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ you folks we've got to we've got to talk about the death of Jesus Christ when we're presenting the gospel to anyone because the Bible says without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins we must let people know about the death of Jesus Christ but if we leave out the resurrection what good is a dead saver to anybody we must tell them of the resurrection of the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ we must let them know there is a living saver and and he lives evermore to make intercession for all of those that have repented of their ways and trusted in him and trusted in his gospel and trusted in his blood and his way of salvation again we can we can concentrate on any number of things and but nobody's going to get saved unless they hear the gospel preached that's the only thing that is able to save men is the gospel of Jesus Christ but we concentrate too much on other things that don't matter with salvation again brother verne hit tonight some of the things that that that he has preached on college campuses but those things didn't have the power to save i've been guilty of the same thing i've been guilty of the same thing i'll get so called up and something else in my mind especially if i'm in front of a particular group of people or a particular person for that matter i've been guilty of the exact same thing and the gospel goes out the window and you concentrate on that one thing folks it is the gospel of jesus christ does the power of god and the salvation so who who has the call to evangelize i ain't asking for a show of hands or anything along those lines just a general question who has a call every one of us if we're born again every one of us have a call to evangelize every one of us have a call to share the gospel to be witnesses of love jesus christ every one of us are to do that so does that mean that we have to go out on sidewalks or on street corners or in pole pits or whatever whatever the case is what were the words across that we read in the first chapter of ax there it was to go to be witnesses of him in jerusalem samaria judae and the uttermost parts of the earth folks wherever you're at wherever you're at you be a witness of jesus christ and you be a strong witness of jesus christ you pray for strength to be to be a good witness of christ have other people pray for you to be a good witness of christ if we do this and if we witness christ and we witness the biblical christ to people people folks god can move it's and and god can save souls when the gospel is preached but again something i want to emphasize tonight is within the church is some of the greatest event evangelistic opportunities to witness christ and folks listen even born again people even people that are of a locked faith we can evangelize to them as well it is no different than when when i or when burn or anybody else goes out and stands on the street corner and preaches the gospel of jesus christ we don't know who we're preaching to we don't know if they're saved we don't know if they're lost we don't know if they've ever heard the gospel or not we don't know if they've heard the gospel a thousand times in their lives folks that's not for us to know and it's certainly not for us to judge on that matter we are called to be witnesses of jesus christ and we are called by by god through jesus christ to go into all the world and to preach the gospel to share the gospel to share the good news that even though someone is a sinner even though they're rebellious against god god is still a savior and we don't need to concentrate on petty things we need to concentrate on the gospel on the very simple message of the gospel that christ came to save sinners christ came to save sinners he came to save you as a sinner he came to save me as a sinner and that's what the world needs to know there's so many people out there there's so many people that that that have the mindset actually two different mindsets one is well i've never really done anything that i need to repent for because they've never killed anyone or they've never robbed a bank or they've never committed adultery you know what we would consider like the top 10 worst sins us as human beings and there's people out there that actually have that mindset then you got people with just the opposite mindset to say i've been too bad for god to forgive you that's not for us to judge not for them to judge it is our job to preach all these people the gospel i even though even though i'm saved born again christian i never tire of hearing the gospel i never tire of hearing the good news that even though i was rebellious against god god still saved my soul he still sent jesus christ into this world jesus christ still suffered a vicarious death for me on a cross and i will never get tired of hearing that i didn't deserve salvation and you didn't deserve salvation and in evangelistic efforts that's something we need to keep far out of our mind is is the thought that someone doesn't deserve to hear the gospel because everyone needs to hear it i didn't deserve it and you didn't deserve it we know and nobody in here deserves anything more than the flames of hell for all of eternity no one out there deserves anything more than that because we have all sin all sin to come short of the glory of god so we need to keep in mind no matter how someone is dressed when we're doing evangelism no matter how they're acting no matter how much they scoff and they mock and they spit or anything else toward us you remember that you were in the same shoes that they were in at one time and you might say to yourself well i wasn't that bad i didn't cuss the preacher or i didn't spit at the preacher or anything along those lines folks you were in the same boat as they were you were a lost sinner but it took someone evangelizing you it took someone preaching you the gospel and it took the holy spirit of god when the gospel was preached to convict your heart and to show you that you were a sinner but despite that god was and is still a savior and god saved your unworthy soul remember though that in evangelism within the church within the church is awesome awesome opportunity for for you to evangelize it's not just out on the streets it's not just in the stores it's not just out in the public arena evangelizing your house evangelize at work evangelize anywhere that you go anywhere you go be a witness just as christ told these people in x chapter one in jerusalem judaia and samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth you go and you be witnesses for christ you present the gospel because that is the power of god on the salvation and that's my message my two cents worth for this evening god bless y'all i appreciate your attention