Mobilizing a Rescue Effort

It was just about a year ago that Hurricane Katrina hit our southern Gulf coast. And what was reported most frequently in the press, or at least what seemed to be recognized the most was the response of federal and state agencies being lacking and therefore being criticized in the press. What was overlooked was the incredible response on the part of the church. The press didn't have a whole lot to say about that but literally hundreds of churches swung into action quickly and sent teams of people to help rebuild, sent ministry teams to help people cope with the disaster, fed people, clothed people, gave shelter to people. And that continues on to this day. On the part of many church groups, we ourselves sent a group down. We responded financially and most churches did in some way. It was a tremendous response. What it demonstrated was that in life and death crises, the church is capable of mobilizing amazing rescue efforts. What troubles me about myself, my own response, and most churches is that we do not see the same response when it comes to evangelism. Is it possible that we do not really see that as a life and death issue? Is it possible that we cannot see that eternal destiny of someone is far more critical than a temporary home that they will inhabit for a little while on this earth? Is it possible that we don't see the two as even being equal, much less, someone's eternal destiny being so much more critical? Is it possible that we do not understand the reality of hell? Is it possible that we do not really believe that people who die without the Savior will spend an eternity separated from God in a place of eternal punishment called hell? And that is incredibly worse than any disaster they could suffer on this earth. Is it possible that we cannot see the danger? If that is the case, then something is dreadfully wrong with us spiritually. In this last message, in this Life Saver series, I want to call attention to the urgency of the situation that we face. I want us to see the situation and see people as Christ Himself sees them. I want us to see that hell is real and that people's eternal destiny is at stake and that that is far more worthy of mobilizing an all-out rescue effort than any hurricane that will ever hit this country. And so let's mobilize an all-out rescue effort this morning. I want us to see people like Jesus saw them. And so would you open your Bibles, please, to Matthew chapter 9 where Jesus saw crowds of people, knew what was going on in their lives and hearts, and mobilized a rescue effort to reach out to them. It serves as a model for what I believe we as a church can do and should do in mobilizing a rescue effort to reach people. To do whatever it takes to reach as many people as we can with the gospel of Jesus Christ, to warn as many as we can of the impending judgment of God and eternity in hell and to reach and rescue as many of them as God will allow us to in the time we have remaining. There's an interesting thing about this passage. It's a very familiar passage and some of you having turned to Matthew 9, beginning in verse 35, recognize this as a passage you often hear from missionaries or in missions conferences. And for that reason, some of you may have closed your Bible and said, okay, another passage on the helpless people that need the shepherd. Open your Bibles back up, please. There's something about this passage that grips me. Part of it is its context. Now, whenever you're reading the gospels in order to get the actual context of where something takes place, you really have to put all the gospels together. If you think Matthew 9, 35, logically or time wise begins right after verse 34, you're sadly mistaken. The gospel of Mark, for instance, makes it clear that the incident that took place right before the one we're going to read this morning was Jesus' last visit to his hometown in Nazareth. And there's some amazing things said about that visit. Jesus enters the synagogue where he was accustomed to going, being a faithful Jew, being under the law as Galatians tells us he went to the synagogue on every Sabbath. He got up to teach on this particular Sabbath day. And the people looked at Jesus and asked questions like this, isn't this the carpenter? And Jesus had spent his adult years in Nazareth working as a carpenter, probably taking over from Joseph. And so they asked, isn't this the carpenter? I mean, you know, he built shelves for my house. He built a bedroom suite for us. Don't we know Mary, his mother, and they list his brothers and sisters? We know them. And so they asked this question, where does he get the authority to teach like this? And where does he get the power to do miracles like this? Notice they do not deny his authority to teach and they do not deny his power to work miracles, but their familiarity with him diluted the impact of that and their willingness to believe him. And so the Bible says in Mark 6 that they took offense at him. And Jesus, that's where he makes this statement that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country. And Ivey says in his own hometown with his own family. So Jesus being spurned and rejected by his own people, his own hometown, what does he do? Well, that's what we read here. He doesn't get discouraged by that. He just says there are people who are willing to listen and there are people who are willing to receive the miracles. In fact, Mark 6 goes on to tell us Jesus could not do many miracles there because of their unbelief and he marveled at their unbelief. It's not that he did not have the power to do the miracles. It's just that God in his sovereignty has limited himself to receptive audiences and to the response of people so that he will move somewhere else if people are non-responsive. And so Jesus does exactly that in Matthew 9. This is where we pick up our reading, where we find how Jesus mobilizes an all-out rescue effort. I want you to notice, first of all, the need for workers that Jesus portrays for us, the need for workers in verses 35 through 37, the need for workers is seen in three ways. The first way that the need for workers is seen is in the work to be done. Look at verse 35 describing the work to be done. Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. Notice the work that needed to be done. There were many more villages than Nazareth. If Jesus will be spurned in Nazareth, he will go where there are receptive hearts. There are some 200 villages in Galilee alone, just one province of the three that he would minister basically and during his ministry. So there's plenty of work to be done on other places. And so Jesus decides, I will go to other villages. There's plenty of teaching to be done and he did that. There's plenty of preaching the good news of the kingdom to be done and he did that. And there are plenty of hurting people that need to be healed and he did that. But Jesus in his bodily presence on this earth is limited to one location. He's only one person in one place at one time. And there are many villages and many needs and many places where the gospel needs to be preached. Many places where people need to be taught. And so Jesus, because of the need of the work, the work that must be done, decides to engage for really the first time in his ministry, his disciples to help him, not with him but to be sent out to do the same kind of work that he's doing in other villages, in other towns. It's interesting to me again that throughout the world, even today, God has chosen to limit himself to using us as His messengers. Now Jesus, being not only man but God while he was here on planet earth, could have invoked His divine powers to somehow miraculously spread the gospel, do healings, teach in every synagogue and every village in that area. He could have done that on his own. He had the power to do that. But he didn't. He limited himself to those who would go, those whom he would send out as His messengers. And He has done the same today. You see, God in all of His power, in all of His sovereignty, could open up heaven and send the angels to evangelize the earth. They could do a very adequate job of that except their own personal testimony would be lacking, none of them have experienced redemption like we have. But God could use any number of means at His disposal because He is God to get the gospel, to every person on earth. He could do that. He has chosen to use us as His instruments. We'll get back to that just a little bit later. But because of the need of the work that must be done, there is a need for workers. But secondly, the needs of the people demand that workers must go. Not only the needs of the work to be done, but the needs of the people in verse 36. The Bible says when He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Two things jump out at me from that verse about the needs of the people. The first is that Jesus had compassion when He looked at them. Now, that's a very, very strong word. It literally is a word that from the Greek means that His bowels were moved. In other words, He felt it in the gut when He looked out and saw the needs of people. In the Hebrew mindset, in the Old Testament mindset, the bowels were considered the seat of fond affections. In the New Testament, in the Greek mindset, the Greek language saw the bowels as the seat of emotion, the seat of anger, the seat of love, the seat of strong emotion. That very real sense that whenever you feel a very strong emotion, not just the normal passing emotion, but a very strong anger or a very strong compassion for someone or love for someone, you may literally feel moved in your midsection. Today, we talk about the heart and we think of that bodily organ as the seat of affection or strong emotion, not so in Bible times. They saw where you really felt it in the midsection as being the seat of strong emotion. And so the writer Matthew is trying to communicate to us the depth of feeling Jesus felt when He looked out on people. He was gripped with an intense, emotional and physical feeling for these people as his heart saw what was wrong. What was it that motivated him to feel that strongly? Well, it was the needs of the people. That's the second thing that grips me about verse 36. Notice they are described as being harassed and helpless. Horrassed and helpless. Now those words easily roll over our tongues or our minds with very little impact unless we stop for a moment to get the picture here. He goes on to describe them as sheep without a shepherd. Quite literally, the meaning of those words harassed and helpless in line with the picture of sheep being without a shepherd, leave us with this picture in Jesus' mind. This is what He saw. This is what moved Him so deeply when He saw the crowd of people. The picture is of sheep that have been brutally fleeced, not carefully and lovingly by a loving shepherd, brutally fleeced. They are bloody. They are cut open. They are lying flung to the ground by careless shepherds who have not really loved them. And Jesus is describing what has happened to the people spiritually under the hands of the religious leaders of the day. You see the Pharisees and the teachers of the law because of their legalism basically, their way of looking at everything is being external. Their way of looking at everything is being just certain do's and don'ts. And if you follow the do's and don'ts that we tell you to, not what the Bible says, but what we tell you to, then you'll be okay. They have literally abused God's people, Israel. And they have brutally fleeced them. Basically, legalism always uses people for the benefit of the person who's in charge. That's what legalism always leads toward to promote and glorify the person who's leading the thing. And people are used to promote the legalist. That's exactly what had happened in Jesus' day. These people had been brutally fleeced and tossed aside. Now we need to see that same picture in our minds when we see people around us. We need to see people who've tried everything in this life and it has left them empty. We need to see people who have struggled to find some meaning for life in relationships and maybe one relationship after another and it has left them bloodied and bruised and bleeding on the ground. It has left them unfulfilled. We need to see people who have tried to climb the job ladder to reach success and once they got there found that nothing else of any importance in their life was still left. They'd sacrifice their family, sacrificed everything they held dear, sacrificed their own ethics maybe to get there. And now they are empty hanging on to a position that brings them great reward maybe financially, but leaves them empty inside. We need to see people who have tried all that life has to offer and they lie bloodied and beaten and bruised on the ground. We need to see people even who have tried religion and found that it does not deliver what it promised to deliver. They've tried joining churches. They've tried following certain movements. They've tried this and that and the other and they just come out feeling used. You see when we see people around us at work and in our neighborhoods we need to see people with those kinds of needs. We need to see them not as people who look nicely dressed and act like they've got life together. We need to see like Jesus did what's on the inside knowing that if a person is putting their confidence or hope in anything other than Jesus they are going to be disillusioned. They are going to be bruised and bloodied on the ground eventually. That's how we need to see people. And so the need of the people cries out for people to go, for people to win people to Christ, for people to rescue others. Not only the work to be done but the need of the people. But there's also the scarcity of the workers. Third reason why there is a need for workers is because there are so few. There's a scarcity of workers. Look at what Jesus says about that in verse 37. Then He said to His disciples, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. You know Jesus could have said, well we've been rejected in Nazareth. No place left to go but no there were plenty of places left to go. What He's saying is don't have your head down, don't have your eyes on your feet. Look up. There are 200 villages in Galilee alone where we can go. We can preach there, we can teach there, we can perform miracles there. But there are only 12 of you. The need is great but there's just a handful of workers. Now Jesus will take that handful and He will send them out. But the need is so much greater than the available workers. The same is true today. The need is so great. The need is so great around this world and in our area but the need is so great right here in Princeton. I know it's easy for us to think that this area is saturated with the gospel. We live in an area in this Princeton blue field area, southern part of the county at least of somewhere around 70 to 75,000 people around our area. Take the 10, 20 miles around us. Not everybody has been reached. In fact, we are in the minority of people who have been reached. The great majority of people are still outside the fold, still outside of Christ and we need to reach them with the gospel. We dare not think that the work is done. The work is just beginning and the work is huge. It is great and there's a scarcity of workers today. When the needs are so great, there's a scarcity of workers. I would challenge every one of us here this morning to become involved not only in token attendance at church but in serving through this church to reach this community with the gospel. That's what God asks of us. Will He smile upon us when we get to heaven and all we have to offer Him is, oh, I came to church occasionally on Sunday morning. Will He smile at that? Will His heart be grieved that we did not see the broken and hurting people around us, empty people who need the Lord and we did nothing to reach out to them? I thank God for every outreach ministry of this church, everything that we are doing to draw people in, to get the gospel to them and to reach out to them, but the need is far greater than what we're doing now. There is much more that needs to be done and the need for workers is great. Most people come to our church when they first visit and they think, well, this is kind of a large church. They probably have all the workers they need. I'll never be able to do anything in this church. That's all I've got to say to you. It's just, there is a huge amount of work to be done. There are ministries we would love to begin. I talk with Jim Simmons the other day and Jim has got his mind swirling with ideas of outreach ministries to prepare us for international mission trips. Now he's not going to be able to do all that on his own. In fact, it would not be healthy for him to do that. We're not going to allow him to try to do all that on his own. We need workers to help us. And there will be plenty of initiatives in the next months and years that we say we need workers in the field. There's a scarcity of workers. The work is great. We need all of you to be involved. We need everyone on board to pull together to mobilize this rescue effort. There will be plenty of work to be done. Let's all find our place, a place or places where we can serve, not just sit in so-conceur, but serve, be active and be involved in the ministry of reaching out. There's the need for workers. And in this familiar story, Matthew goes on to tell us about the sending of workers. Not only is there a need because of the great work to be done and because of the needs of the people and the scarcity of workers, there was a going. There was a sending of workers here. I love how Jesus responds to this. He cannot help but be deeply impressed with the God-man as he responds to this crisis. Having basically been run out of his hometown, what does he do? Is he discouraged? Is he overwhelmed even by the other needs that are available? No. He basically does two things. First of all, he says to his men, his disciples, pray for workers. He's not discouraged. He says pray for workers. I love his spirit and attitude here, partly because it's easy for me to look at great needs and feel overwhelmed. Jesus didn't. Kind of like the shoe salesman I heard about that went to Africa. His company sent him to Africa and he was there for a couple of weeks and he frantically called back and said, it's hopeless. Nobody wears shoes here. So there's no market for shoes in Africa. So they called him home and they sent another guy. This guy had been there about two weeks and he's placing order after order and the company calls him up and says, what's going on over there? The less guy couldn't sell a pair of shoes. And this guy said, everybody needs shoes over here. You see, it was his looking at things, the way he looked at things that meant the difference in what got done. And it will be the same for us. It's all in the way we look at things. So what we need to do is the same two things Jesus said to his people. First of all, pray for workers. Look at verse 38, ask the Lord of the Harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field. As he walks out of the city of Nazareth and on his mind, there's 200 other villages at least and he's got plans in his mind to reach out to those 200 villages. What does he say? Pray. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest. Yes, the harvest is plentiful. The workers are few, but pray for workers. So he says to his 12 men, don't get discouraged. In other words, take the energy that you might channel into getting discouraged at the odds against us and channel that energy into prayer for more workers. Take that energy that you might channel into a kind of a superior attitude because you're going and other people aren't. Take that energy and put that energy into prayer for more workers to join you. Take that energy that you might put into a helpless feeling or discouragement or even anger at other people for not going and channel that into prayer and pray for workers to go. And when Jesus said pray to send out workers, the word is a very strong word. Send out literally means to throw out, to thrust out workers. The idea is this is urgent. This is serious. So let's pray that we catch a vision. We catch a burden for the work that needs to be done and the scarcity of workers out there. And that we ask that God will shake us up and that He will throw us out into his harvest field. This is not just a little gentle tap on the shoulder. Like, you know, there's kind of an idea I'd like to run by here. You know, there's some people that might need to be reached. And, you know, I think maybe you're up to the job. That's not that at all. Jesus is saying pray that God will get ahold of people by the neck and throw them out into the harvest and help them to see the great needs around them. For all of us, we need that. We need that jolt. We need that sense of urgency to see the needs and we need to be praying that God will thrust us out into the harvest fields. But Jesus not only talks about praying for workers. You've got to go on into chapter 10 to get the rest of the story. Sometimes chapter breaks are the greatest hindrance to understanding the flow of a story. Because you finish the chapter and you think, oh, I've done my Bible reading for the day. And you don't get the full story. Because the story really continues in chapter 10 and verse 1 with the second thing Jesus did. Not only did He say to His men, pray for workers. He said to them, all right, you go as workers. Go as workers. Look at what He says in verse 1. He called His twelve disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. See, that's what Jesus was doing. Back in verse 35, He was going and healing diseases. He was also teaching and preaching and these men will do the same thing. And then in verses 2 through 4, He lists the twelve disciples. Now this is just not just a passage for He to learn the names of the twelve disciples. This passage is Jesus listing the roster of people He's thrusting out. That He's telling to go into the harvest fields. It's interesting to me that He lists them by twos. You see that? It's not just a list. He lists them by twos. Notice this. These are the names of the twelve apostles, first Simon who is called Peter and his brother Andrew. Simicolum, that's first two. Here's the next two. James, son of Zebedee and his brother John. Okay? The third couple at verse 3, Philip and Bartholomew. They're going to go together. Then Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector are going to go together. Then James, son of Alphius and Thaddeus, they're going to go together. Then Simon, the Zeleot and Judasus, carried who would betray him. They're going to go together. He sent them out in twos. Sent them out in teams. Sent them out in groups of two to encourage one another and help one another and to lift up one another when one's a little down. The other can encourage. When one's a little slow, the other can prod. They work together. But he thrust them out. He said, go as workers. In verse 5, it says these twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions. He sent them out to do the work that needed to be done. Not only is Jesus now going to be preaching and teaching and healing, he's sending out Peter and Andrew to do the same thing in some villages. He's sending out James and John to do the same thing in some other villages and other couples of missionary apostles to do the same thing in other villages. And they're going. They're going as workers. Now what God wants us to do is not only pray for workers, He wants us to go to. It's one thing to pray. It's another thing to recognize. You may be the answer to your own prayer. These men were, you know, Jesus said to them, pray that the Lord will thrust out workers into His harvest. And it's great to pray. It's a command to do it. We need to do that. But be careful because God may end up telling you, you are the answer to your own prayer. And I'm confident that that's what He wants to say to us for right here in this area. It's not enough for us just to pray that this area will be reached. We're the ones to do it. We're the ones that need to go. It's not enough for us just to think about how wonderful it would be if there were so many people coming to Christ that we needed to build a new building. It's not enough just to think that way and pray that maybe that will have, we need to go and reach those neighbors and coworkers and people so that in God's sovereign plan He will reach those that He wants to reach through us and we will see them come to the Savior. Not only do we pray, we've got to go. We've got to go. We've got to go across the street. We've got to reach across the hallway to a fellow schoolmate. We've got to reach across the work room where we work and we've got to go wherever we are to reach people with the gospel. Our neighborhoods, a neighbor person across the street, we need to go. So pray, yes, but go as workers as well. But then Jesus gives instructions for the workers. And if we wanted to take the time we could do an exposition, I've done this before on this very passage through verse 15 on the different instructions that Jesus gave his workers. I'm not going to do that this morning because there's a different set of instructions that apply to us. We see the instructions that He gave them about where to go in verses five and six and what to do in verses seven and eight and how He will provide for them in verses nine and ten and the reception they will face in verses 11 through 15. Those instructions were pretty unique to their situation. I mean, it's things like you're to go to the lost house of Israel. This is so urgent and we're doing it right now. You don't even have time to go home and get provisions. I'll take care of you. I'll provide everything. And what to do when somebody ran them out of town, those kinds of things. The instructions are fairly unique to their situation. Not all of them apply to us in the current situation. This side of the cross where we're seeking to win people to Christ and build churches. But there are some instructions that do apply to us. What I want to do in the remaining moments of this service is remind you of six instructions that we've seen in this series of messages on life savers. I want to summarize and pull together everything that we have taught in this series in six basic summary instructions. I promise I won't preach for another hour to get those in. Let me just remind you of them briefly. To tie everything together, these are our instructions. Number one, answer the call. Answer the call. Every one of us in this room is called the ministry. Don't wait for some voice from heaven. Don't wait for some writing in the sky. Don't wait for some unusual circumstance to constitute a call to ministry. Every one of us in this room is called to ministry. You know that? Maybe not vocationally where we give up our day job and vocationally do ministry. Maybe not that. But all of us are called to minister in some capacity being involved in living godly lives before those around us and seeking to reach out to them with the gospel. Every one of us in this room who knows Jesus Christ is called to do that. Don't wait for a call. We already have it in Matthew 5 where Jesus says you're to be salt and light wherever you live. Don't wait for a call. We already have it in Matthew 28 where Jesus tells us go into all the world, disciple all nations, baptize them, teach them. Don't wait for a call. We already have it in Acts 1-8 where Jesus tells us that we are to be his witnesses, both in our home area and spreading out to the ends of the earth. Don't wait for a call. We have it in Romans chapter 10 already. Where Jesus tells us that people need to call on the name of the Lord to be saved but they can't call on people that they've not believed in and they can't believe on them unless they've heard and they can't hear unless someone tells them. We've already been called. Don't wait for a call. We already have the call in 2 Corinthians 5 where Jesus tells us we have the ministry. Paul tells us you have the ministry of reconciliation. You have the message of reconciliation. Now take it and plead with people on Christ behalf. Be reconciled to me. Don't wait for a call. We already have it in Philippians 2 where Paul reminds us that in this crooked and perverse generation we are to shine as lights as we hold forth the word of life. Don't wait for a call. We already have it in 1 Peter 2 where Peter tells us that we are to live such godly lives among the heathen that even though they may accuse us of wrongdoing they will see our good works and glorify our Father in the day of visitation. We already have it in 1 Peter 315 where Peter tells us that we should be ready every time, all the time, always to give an answer to those who ask a reason for the hope that sin is don't wait for a call. We already have a call. Answer the call. Answer the call. That's what we need to do. Secondly, second instruction we have. Take your assignment seriously. We have seen in this series that we all have an assignment given to us by God. Now the word assignment is not used but the word ambassador is. Look at this verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 20. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God. Take your assignment seriously. If the President of the United States were to call you today and say I have an assignment for you. I want you to be the ambassador to France. Well after your wife woke you back up from fading and got you back to the phone, you would inquire no doubt as to what that is but you would take that very seriously. If you had that kind of responsibility, you would take it very seriously. You would be representing this country in another land. God has given all of us the assignment to represent the country of heaven in a foreign land. He has given you your own specific assignment, your neighborhood, your workplace, your school, your friends. He has providentially placed you in a country. An assignment is yours. You are an ambassador of his wherever you are. Take that seriously. Take that seriously. Third instruction I believe that God has given us through his word in this series is focus on one person. I know the task can become overwhelming and we think of all the people that need Christ and where do I start? Well do like Jesus did as we saw in John 4 earlier, Jesus focused on one person there and many other times in his ministry he focused on one person. Personalize your burden. When you start looking around and you see people like Jesus did and you feel that sense of compassion, then personalize it. Don't let the lost be just nameless groups of people or a theological concept. Take that concept, the lost and put it on a face. Someone who works with you. Someone who's a neighbor across the street, a friend who went to high school with and you just reconnected with. Put a face to it. Think of one individual, one person that you can begin to focus your prayers and your outreach efforts on focus on one person. So you realize the lost is not just a theological concept, the lost is a person who works across the hall from you. That's who it is. Focus on one person. Number four, pray for opportunities and seize them. Pray for opportunities and seize them. Believe that in God's sovereignty he will put you in positions maybe even daily, maybe not, but he will at some point put you in positions to influence others with your lifestyle and to speak to some about their need of Christ or about the lack of hope in their lives or whatever God may burden your heart. Remember the prayer that we talked about praying early in this series as you get up each day, pray number one for open doors for that day. Secondly, pray for open hearts to be on the other side of those open doors and thirdly pray for open lips to be bold to speak, whatever God wants you to speak. Open doors, open hearts, open lips. Take that seriously. Pray for opportunities for the day and seize them when they come. That's instruction number four, instruction number five. Prepare a practical gospel presentation. We've talked a good bit about that in this series. For one thing we talked about how to prepare your own testimony. Paul's example that we talked about, very simply, I want to remind you of what it's like to give your testimony. Think about what life was like before Christ. Think about the turning point where you came to Christ and think about what life has been like since you came to know Christ. Begin to think that through and put it into your own words as to how you would share with someone what it meant for you personally to come to the Savior. But not only that, think of a simple gospel presentation that you could make to someone that you could sit down and actually share with someone how they could come to know Jesus. When the conversation gets to that point and not every occasion is going to lead to that full-blown gospel presentation, but at some point with that person you're thinking of, it may come to that. Hopefully it will. When it does, you need to be ready and not back off. You need to be ready to give a full-blown gospel presentation. It might sound something like the one we talked about. It may be something else. The one we talked about was there's a relationship you were made for. God and major to have a relationship with Him. It's a relationship you don't have because of sin. It's a relationship you can have because of what Jesus did for you at the cross. It's a relationship you must choose as many as received Him to then give you the authority to become the children of God. Christ's death does not automatically blanket everybody with salvation. There must be a response from the heart to receive Him. That very simple gospel presentation, you could think through how to say that on your own, some scripture verses with that, you could give the gospel to someone in five minutes. That may take more time for that than that for the Holy Spirit to really work in their hearts. But remember evangelism is a process. It's not a one-shot deal. But be ready when that opportunity comes. Instruction number six. Partner with the church. Partner with the church. It is our burden here in leadership at this church to provide multiple opportunities for people to hear the gospel. Not just in services, but in all kinds of outreach ministries. Now the reason for that is not just to keep people busy, not just to have more ministry so that we can boast on a website. This is the number of ministries we've got. I have absolutely no interest in that. The only thing in the website I ever look at is the prayer page. I have no interest. And I hope you look at more than that. But I don't really need to. I know what's going on. I have no interest in building a big deal. I have no interest in that at all. But what we want to do when we start new ministries and we have a variety of ministries is to give you opportunities to plug people in, to bring people, to invite them to. And so yes, take advantage of those opportunities to invite them to a Sunday service, to invite them to a Halloween alternative for their children or an Easter egg hunt for their children, where they will hear the gospel, invite them to a music program or a divorce care ministry or grief share or mobs or a men's fellowship breakfast or a DMA meeting or an awana activity or divorce care for kids or a craft night for the ladies or a stronghold meeting or a teen meeting Bible study or activity and invite them to those things so that they can hear the gospel. Partner with the church. We're making the opportunities available to you. Find those that fit the needs of the people you're working with and say, hey, we've got something really cool at our church. I think you'd enjoy it. I think you'd love it. I think it would be a help to your family. I think it would bless your kids. Come with me. Find them. Partner with the church to give you that extra step of getting the gospel to someone. We must simply see, as Jesus caused, these 12 men to see that God wants us. He wants to use us to reach others with the gospel. We cannot wait for someone else to reach our friends. We cannot just hope that some TV preacher or radio program will someday reach them. We cannot just hope that they will show up at church. We must go and take the gospel to them. But partner with the church and things we offer to help you do that by inviting folks to where they're here at the gospel. In the movie The Patriot, the key character in that movie is a former soldier who becomes aroused in his spirit by the injustices of the British to raise up a militia in South Carolina and begin to fight the British. One of his sons is involved in that with him. There is a point in that film where that son walks into a church to challenge the men of that church about what their responsibility is. Has a little help from the young lady who will become his fiance. Won't you take a look at the kind of challenge that was given that day, that time? Reverend, with your permission I'd like to make an announcement. Young man, this is a house of God. I understand that Reverend, I apologize. The South Carolina militia is being called up. I'm here to enlist every man willing. Son, we are here to pray for the souls of those men hanging outside. Yes, pray for them. But honor them by taking up arms with us. And bring more suffering to this town. King George can hang those men, our friends. He can hang any one of us. And since God, barely a week ago I heard you rail for two hours about independence. Mr. Hardwick, how many times have I heard you speak of freedom at my father's table? Have the men in this church, including you father and you Reverend, our as ardent patriots as I? Who you now, when you are needed most, stop it only words. Is that the sort of men you are? I ask only that you act upon the beliefs of which you have so strongly spoken and in which you so strongly believe. Who's with us? Who's with us? I believe we stand at much the same point this morning. No, it's not a conflict on our land that I'm calling for. But it's an army of soldiers. Will we be men and women of words only? Will we be people who say we believe that people are lost and need the Savior? Or will we back up what we believe with our actions? Will we enlist in God's army, if you will, of people who would say I'm with you? I will do whatever I can to reach out to my neighbors, my friends, my co-workers. I will not be a hypocrite of words only and no action. I will, I will stand for my Savior and reach others for Him as I can. Would you bow your heads please? Every head bow, every eye closed. If you stand, you stand for God, not for others to see. Will you stand? If you take your stand with us today, I will. This is not for other people to see. This is for God to see and register the decision in your heart. I will. I will. God sees and knows all of our hearts. Would you all stand please? Father I pray that you would speak to us from your Word today. Continue to grip our hearts with the needs of people around us. Lord how easily we can see we fail. We would grip my heart with a most recent failure in my own life to speak when I should have spoken. Help us not to be people of words only, to be people who act on our beliefs. Father give us your strength to reach those around us for your glory, for your kingdom. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.