Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This is a conversational podcast that brings powerful moments from the Inspirational Media sermon library into fresh, engaging dialogue. Hosted by voices who care deeply about sharing timeless biblical truth, each episode unpacks key ideas from sermons, devotionals, and real-life stories — helping listeners reflect, relate, and rediscover hope in today’s world.
Whether you're exploring faith, seeking encouragement, or simply curious about spiritual truth, this podcast is designed to stir the heart and spark interest in the deeper resources available in our library.
🎧 Dive into the conversation and discover what’s waiting for you at inspirational.org.nz.
9787--David Watson--Holy Spirit in Evangelising_128k
00:00:00 Speaker: Acts chapter one. Although we shall be looking at one or two other passages, we shall again be concentrating on acts, because here you get in this particular book an account of quite astonishing growth in the life of the early church, in fact, probably a growth that some people feel has never been paralleled in the history of the entire church. Certainly there was a most amazing outreach, a most tremendous demonstration of the power of God. You see, at Pentecost, there were only one hundred and twenty disciples, and in Palestine, approximately four million Jews. That's a ratio of one to thirty three thousand approximately. Yet, God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, use this ratio not only to turn Palestine upside down, but also virtually the entire Roman Empire, the world of their day, upside down. Now, with that kind of ratio, it would be equivalent to for Christians only in York, just for Christians to the size of York. Now there are nearly two hundred here tonight, I should think. I suppose on Sundays, morning and evening combined, we might get as many as a thousand. All told, although some would be the same people twice in the all the other churches together. We might have, as we suggested the other week, maybe five thousand in York, five thousand in York, not just four, but five thousand. Why is it that our impact is so small, comparatively speaking? Well, no doubt there are a variety of factors. I wouldn't put it all down to this, but I'm sure the primary factor is that we know so little of the power of the Holy Spirit in our own lives and fellowship and experience. Certainly here in acts, the apostles, you get, I think, over forty references to the Holy Spirit in the first thirteen chapters. It is the acts of the Holy Spirit. Now, let me try this evening to mention six aspects of the Holy Spirit's work in evangelism. And first of all, I want to touch on the Holy Spirit and the Great Commission. You remember how Jesus gave the Great Commission? It's recorded at the end of all four gospels that we are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That's the Great Commission. The fact is, the Holy Spirit is the witnessing spirit. He is the witnessing spirit. Jesus said he will bear witness to me, and you also are witnesses, but he especially will bear witness to me. And here in acts, if your Bibles open in acts one, verse eight, this well known verse, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and so on. In other words, whenever the Holy Spirit is present in power, there will be inevitably powerful witness of Jesus Christ, because that's the Holy Spirit's task. He's there not to just give us lovely experiences, although he may do that. He's there not just to produce within us love and joy and peace and the fruit of the spirit, though he will do that. He is here not just to give us the gifts of the Holy Spirit, though he will do that. But essentially he is here to glorify Jesus. And we need always remember that, because it's a very good test of any person or any church who may be claiming some blessing of the Holy Spirit. How far does this person or this fellowship glorify Jesus? That's what the Holy Spirit does. First and foremost, he's a witnessing spirit. He witnesses to Jesus Christ. He glorifies Christ. And from Pentecost onwards, witness and evangelism inevitably happened. It just flowed, as it were, in acts two. Of course, the very first thing that the disciples did when the Holy Spirit fell was to worship God in a language that was given to them. And then the very first thing that Peter did was to preach an evangelistic sermon, and they were all cut to the heart, and they said, what shall we do? The first thing they did, because the Holy Spirit said, witnessing spirit, and on and on they went until their critics. I think it's in acts five, say that you have filled this city, Jerusalem, with your teaching, because the Holy Spirit had filled their hearts and therefore had filled that city with the teaching. Once were caught up in the Holy Spirit, we are inevitably caught up in evangelism. And there's a very interesting point here, which I've done quite a lot of thinking and talking and studying on the whole theme of evangelism with John Brooke during the last few weeks. And this is one of the points that John and his reading and study brought out, which I hadn't noticed quite so clearly before. But there is no reference in the early church. Back to the Great Commission. Nowhere. In other words, for example, in acts or even in the epistles, did they remind one another or exhort one another to go out and evangelize, to go out and witness? It just happened. Even in acts eleven and fifteen, where there's a great debate of whether or not to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, they don't go back to the Great Commission. Yes, we are to preach the gospel to every creature. They simply relate what God in fact was doing amongst them, that he was apparently blessing even the Gentiles. Now why do they not have to tell one another to evangelize? Because the Holy Spirit was working powerfully amongst them, and he is a witnessing spirit. And if the Holy Spirit is working powerfully amongst us, we shall witness, we shall evangelize. It will just flow out from us. If he really is at work, a lovely Christian minister that Ann and I met in Washington called Doctor Richard Harvison, he's a he's a person with a tremendously clear witness to Christ. One said this at a Congress in evangelism. Evangelism never seemed to be an issue in the New Testament. That is to say, one does not find the apostles urging, exhorting, Scolding, planning, and organizing for evangelistic programs in the Apostolic Church. Evangelism was somehow assumed and it functioned without special techniques or special programs. Evangelism happened, issuing effortlessly from the community of believers as light from the sun. It was automatic, spontaneous, continuous, contagious because the Holy Spirit was there and he is a witnessing spirit. And again, I think one of the books that John read, which he pointed out to me, it's very interesting. You get in Genesis one twenty eight the command from God, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Now, most people don't need to study that command of God before they have children. It's just doing what comes naturally. If you like, in the context of marriage, you only need to come back to the command of God if there's very perverted ideas about sex. This is, if you like, a statement, but people do it Now acts one eight and the Great Commission, if you like, is the New Testament and spiritual equivalent of Genesis one twenty eight. We are, spiritually speaking, to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth and subdue it. Now, that shouldn't have to be a commandment. We have to study carefully. If the Holy Spirit is really working amongst us, it's doing what comes naturally. It's only when we get off beam that we have to come back to the Great Commission and check out whether or not we're really doing what God intends us to do. So the Holy Spirit and the Great Commission, he is the witnessing spirit. Second, the Holy Spirit and power. Here again in acts one, verses four and five, while staying with them, he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the father, which he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And again, verse eight, which we've already read. And in Luke twenty four, at the end, right at the very end, the last few verses of that needn't turn to it. I'll just read a few verses to you exactly the same statement there he says to his disciples, you are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. And they were in no mood or readiness to go out and witness to Christ, until they were clothed with power from on high. But today I think a lot of harm is done both to Christians and non-Christians alike. When we try and go out and witness because we're told to ad nauseum, without the power of the Holy Spirit with us. Real Christian witness should be a natural and spontaneous overflow of Holy Spirit life in our own hearts. It's out of the abundance of the heart. The mouth will speak. Forgive me using one of these communion cups to illustrate this. Supposing this cup at the moment is filled with liquid. If you bump into me, what will spill out. Whatever is in the cup. When people bump into us day by day, in the streets or wherever it may be. What spills out? Whatever is filling our heart. And if my heart is largely full of self, self-pity or whatever it might be, then that will spill out. And I'll tell everybody about my latest woes and problems and aches and pains and what have you. But if my heart is filled with the Holy Spirit, then he will spill out. He will testify of Jesus one way or another, even in not a particular religious language, but he will inevitably reveal Jesus. Whatever is there will spill out. When people bump into us, and therefore if our lives are really filled with the Holy Spirit, we can't help but witness of Jesus. Whatever we're saying or doing when we bump into people. That's why the disciples had to stay and to wait until they were filled with power from on high. It's the one indispensable thing. And later you find in chapter four. Verses. We've several times looked at verses twenty nine to thirty one. Here they were warned no longer to teach any more Jesus. And they prayed very much together to the Lord, the sovereign Lord. Now, Lord, they said, look upon their threats, and grant to thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness, while thou stretched out thy hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed through the name of thy holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the Word of God with boldness. They knew it's no good going into this situation, preaching Christ until they had a fresh power of God from on high. Therefore they prayed, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and then they spoke the Word of God with boldness. And we see in verse thirty three that with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And if you're making notes, just put down two other references. One Corinthians two one to five were there Paul preached Christ and Him crucified, longing for a demonstration of the spirit and power. And one Thessalonians one five to eight, the epistle that was read tonight, that his word came not in word only, but also with power, and with the Holy Spirit, and with much conviction, and really did things. You see, we don't need great numbers to make an impact. What we do need is great commitment, which leads to great power. I read this the other day from a book by Leighton Ford. One percent of the Russians brought about the Russian Revolution. Nazism was always a minority until it was too late. A leader of the radical student left recently told Billy Graham that they were trying to cut their movement down by two thirds. Not to build it up, but to cut it down by two thirds until they had a dedicated group of trained and disciplined followers who could bring about the revolution. We don't need more Christians. If anything, we need less Christians who really mean business before there's a revolution for God on this earth. You see, again in acts, if you turn to acts five, verse twenty seven. When they had brought them, they set them before the council. And this is the very council that had virtually murdered Jesus. It was the most powerful and the most terrifying council you could ever be brought before in their world. And the high priest questioned them, saying, we strictly charged you not to teach in this name. Yet here you've filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us. And have we been in their shoes? We might have said, well, yes, sir, no, sir. Three bags full, sir. In other words, of course we'll do what you say. But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and Savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. What happened in verse forty? They beat them halfway through that verse. They beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. They then left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. Now that is fantastic boldness. There was the council that had murdered their master. They'd already been beaten, and yet such was their determination to obey God that quite regardless of this threat and the warning and the beating, on and on they went. Even in the temple, not just secretly in their homes, but even in the temple, they went on every day preaching Jesus Christ. No wonder the power of the Holy Spirit was with them. Why? Because of this total commitment to Christ and to one another. And that is what is lacking today. We're not single minded when it comes to Christ and to the body of Christ. Either we have lots of desires and ambitions in our life so that Christianity is just one of them. The church is like one club. We may belong to the Workingmens club, the conservative Club, the Labour Club, uh, all sorts of other clubs and also the Christian club. It's just one of a great many clubs we belong to, or we are totally committed to Christ, but maybe not to the body of Christ. We do our own thing and frankly, we are deceiving ourselves because our love for Christ will be measured by our love for one another. That's what the New Testament several times says. And if unless we see ourselves as really committed to one another, it becomes my Christianity, my ministry, my witness, my work, my thing, and God's power is for God's people. We ought to be laying down our lives for one another. If there's going to be the witness that there ought to be to the world of the reality of Christ. And that's what we see here again and again, like in acts four, verse thirty two. Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own. They had everything in common, and therefore with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit then, and power. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit and truth. Will you turn back to John chapter fifteen, the last two verses of that and one or two verses in chapter sixteen. Verse twenty six and twenty seven of John fifteen. But when the counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the father, even the spirit of truth, who proceeds from the father, he will bear witness to me. And you also are witnesses. You see, he's a spirit of truth. He's the one that bear witness, bears witness to me. And in chapter sixteen, verse thirteen and fourteen, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. In other words, the Holy Spirit is concerned not just with religious experiences, but with the truth about Christ and the truth of the Christian gospel, the truths of God's Word, because Jesus is the truth. And in my experience, the churches which experience not only a deep and powerful spiritual renewal but a lasting spiritual renewal, are ones which have stressed the importance of God's truth and the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in preaching and teaching. Now the truth without the spirit can be as dead as can be, but the spirit without the truth can lead into all sorts of abuses and counterfeits and all sorts of things which are wrong. And tragically, a number of wonderful revivals of the Spirit of God were no doubt the spirit was mightily at work, disappeared virtually overnight because there wasn't the regular, insistent preaching of the truth of God being too experience based. Nevertheless, the truth does need the Holy Spirit before it becomes living and active and powerful. And therefore, in chapter sixteen, verses eight to eleven, there Jesus says, when he comes, he will convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, of sin. The main sin being because they do not believe in me of righteousness. That's the rightness about Jesus. Because I go to the father of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I was very moved in Newcastle where when at the end of meetings, various people came up to say they were given their lives to Christ, and one could see that several of them were in tears and many of them were obviously deeply moved. Now that's the Holy Spirit convincing them of sin, righteousness, and judgment. I had a letter today from one of the students in Oxford, and she told me of the tremendous joy that God had given her in Jesus Christ, and how the whole new life seemed to be opened up. And then she said, one of the first things that she did after she had found this new joy was yesterday. I decided to write a list of all my faults, and I wrote. I wrote well over fifty now you see. She began to see some of the sin in her life, which she hadn't really noticed before, and she had this new love because of this new forgiveness. He who is forgiven much loves much. The Holy Spirit was convincing her of well over fifty faults in her life. He is at work powerfully in her life and therefore in evangelism. I believe that although there is a great importance of worship and maybe communicating in other ways like drama and what have you, the primary task which the Holy Spirit honors is to teach the truth about Jesus Christ. May it always be so in this church. The fourth thing is the Holy Spirit and communication. Now this is really a part of the truth, but I want to emphasize briefly that God communicates in a whole variety of ways. For example, in acts two, coming back to the acts now. Verse four. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. And this was startling. Verse six. At this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Now God got through at that level. To begin with, the teaching of the gospel had to follow. But God spoke through this sign. One Corinthians fourteen. God speaks through prophecy too. So the people become under conviction of sin. God can speak at many different levels. Again in chapter two, verse forty four, following, you get this marvelous picture being all together. Having everything in common. Worshiping together, sharing together in their homes. The end of verse forty seven and the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved. Love and joy and praise God, communicating the truth about himself. I was fairly shaken in our staff meeting this morning when Elaine Apter, who works with needy people. Young people in the city of York had to say this that she has at the moment a great reluctance to evangelize. Now she's amongst people who desperately need Christ. Obviously, on the surface, everyone desperately needs Christ, but she's very reluctant to evangelize. Why? Because there is no opportunity in this fellowship, in this church, of the kind of care and love in the context of Christian homes or communities which these young people need. It's not enough just to tell a person who's really whole background is mucked up that God loves them. You've got to show that God loves them by surrounding them with love twenty four hours a day of really giving them a totally new life altogether. And she at the moment is reluctant to evangelize because she cannot bring young people into a Christian setting where they can see the reality of Christ. Now that's awful. We're praying for Elaine. We give money to help Elaine, and yet she cannot evangelize because there is not the facility here to back up her work in this kind of Christian home and extended family community, whatever is needed for young people. Now that's a tremendous prayer need. But you see, a lot of people need to see that God loves them, to feel that God loves them, to know in their own lives that God loves them before they listen with their ears that truth. And again and again we need to go through it again. We went through it a few weeks ago. You'll see acts three. There was healing and so on and so on. In many ways, God communicating his truth, demonstrating the truth of the gospel by signs and wonders and and what have you. Fifth, the Holy Spirit and guidance. Now, this is a huge and fascinating subject when it comes to evangelism. May I say three things there, which struck me very forcefully in the acts here in the first place. Guidance is usually natural. Guidance is usually natural. Will you turn to chapter seventeen. And you understand what I mean by this. The end of verse one at Thessalonica, there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in to that synagogue, as was his custom. And for three weeks he argued with them from the scriptures. When he arrived, he didn't look for a kind of heavenly radar to wonder where he should go or not. It was his kind of custom. He said, well, that's the obvious place to go to. He went straight to the synagogue. There he preached Christ. And you'll find again and again that this is how they acted. They did the thing that was most obvious, that was most rational. They used their minds. They used their thinking. They used their common sense. Guidance is frequently rational. We don't always expect God to do something very strange and very remarkable. It was when Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, as was their custom, that God suddenly gave them the word of knowledge, if you like, or wisdom, or the faith in which to act upon that about this cripple and to heal the cripple. And then lots of people were converted as a result, because they were doing what was obvious. It was their custom. It was their habit. Guidance is usually natural. We had just before one of the guest services once, some time ago now, and an was carrying our first or second child, I can't remember which, and she wasn't feeling very well. And there was a terrific, um, you know, preparation to be done for a guest service. And suddenly a chap turned up on the doorstep saying the Lord had sent him from Bristol and he was to stay the weekend with us. Uh, well, we were interested in this, and we brought him in and asked why he'd been sent and what had he come to say, and what did he come to do? And it's perfectly clear that he had come to say or do nothing, but as a kind of a sort of spiritual adventure, really, that the Lord had sent him in Bristol, I'm afraid. We gave him a cup of tea and something to eat and put him back on the road and said, well, the Lord hasn't told us you're coming, and I hope he learnt a lesson, because sometimes people think, well, this is how God always guides in evangelism. I don't believe it. Usually it's through natural processes. Secondly, guidance is often corporate, not a private affair. Even after Paul and Peter and others had had tremendous visions and revelations about the gospel going to the Gentiles, they still submitted this revolutionary idea to the leaders, the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. Turn to chapter fifteen for a moment. Turn back a page or two. And then, instead of just having a lengthy prayer meeting about it, verse six, the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate. Dot, dot dot. Verse twelve. And all the assembly kept silent. And they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. Verse thirteen. After they finished speaking, James replied, dot, dot, dot. And he says in verse nineteen, therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from pollution of idols, from unchastity, from what is strangled, and from blood. Verse twenty two. Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders to take action. And in verse twenty eight they say, it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than the things, than the necessary things, that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, etc. just what James had suggested. In other words, God guided them very clearly by the Holy Spirit through a most democratic procedure. They talked together. They discussed together. They debated together. Wasn't just one long prayer meeting. And we shouldn't neglect this part of guidance that we talk things out. We talk things through. That's how God guides us as a church. There can be a false spirituality. I think we're saying, well, let's just pray. And that that that'll be God's guidance for us. However, having said that, that guidance is usually natural. Often corporate. Thirdly, guidance is sometimes special, and God does act in special ways, of course. And we haven't got time. The time is rapidly going by. But may I just give you the references so that you can look them up if you want to? Chapter eight, verse twenty six twenty nine thirty nine. The spirit guiding Philip very clearly indeed. Chapter eleven, verses twelve fifteen to seventeen. Here God is guiding very clearly Peter to the house of Cornelius, and he's recounting the astonishing way that he was guided to the Gentiles. Chapter thirteen, verses one to four. Chapter sixteen, verses six to ten. Look there and you see how God does guide in unusual ways for very special occasions. And we mustn't neglect that either. The last thing I want to say, and I've hurried over so I can say this last thing, is the Holy Spirit and conversion. Now, I think here we need some fresh thinking. See, all my life I've been taught. And all my life I've been doing, I shall continue to do to some extent that the ABC of the gospel is this to admit your need, believe that Christ has died for you and come to him. But I think it's partly because we have neglected in the ABC any reference to the Holy Spirit so often that there is all this confusion about a subsequent, later, deeper experience of the Holy Spirit and maybe the whole debate at the moment on the baptism and fullness of the spirit is partly because we've neglected teaching and expectation of the spirit at the moment of conversion. Take the two booklets that I use more than any other booklets, and will no doubt continue to do so. This one here by John. Stop becoming a Christian. This one here. Journey into Life by Norman Warren. Neither booklet has a single reference to the Holy Spirit. Yet if you turn to acts two, when they say turn to it because you know this. But when they say, brethren, what shall we do? The answer is to repent and be baptized, and you'll receive the Holy Spirit. And when later on, Philip went and preached Jesus, they believed they were baptized. But the apostles came along and prayed for them that they might be filled with the spirit. When Ananias came to Paul in Acts nine, he came, having already met with Christ, that he might be filled with the spirit. And if we not only made reference to the Holy Spirit at the time of conversion, but prayed and expected God to fill people with the Holy Spirit at conversion or very soon afterwards? I think a lot of the tensions and debates and confusion that's in the church at the moment might not be there. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is active at conversion and we need to take note of that. That's just something for you to think and consider and study. Well, I apologize, I've gone through all these big themes so swiftly. I've only just touched on a tremendous number of important themes. But let's pray that the spirit of truth will guide us into all the truth and in Paris as we seek to be effective witnesses for Jesus Christ. The talk, titled The Church and Evangelism Now follows. Tonight we come to the theme of the church in evangelism. Now, in this series, we've already looked at this theme to some extent, of course, because, for example, last time I spoke on the Spirit in Evangelism, and you cannot speak on that without speaking on the church in evangelism, because the church is a fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, I'm not going to cover the kind of ground that we have looked at already so far in this series. But the church, of course, not as a building, nor even just a collection of individuals, but as a real body of Christ, is of tremendous importance when it comes to evangelism. And this is one of the many lessons that some of us have been learning in various missions this last month, I think for too long. In many circles we have ignored this, and we've tended to think of evangelism either in terms of special guest services or something like that, or in terms of just individual personal work, personal evangelism. And we very largely neglected the tremendous impact of the church as a living body of Christ ought to have evangelistically. One man whose paper at Lausanne I found very helpful. It's the paper he distributed to all the folk going to the Lausanne Congress in evangelism. Howard Schneider from South America said this. Protestantism in general has emphasized the individual over the community. Too often, the church has been seen more as a collection of saved souls than as a community of interacting personalities. But the model of Christ with his disciples, the example of the early church and the explicit teaching of Jesus and Paul should call us back to the importance of community fellowship and community life are necessary in order to prepare Christians for witness and service. Every Christian is a witness in the world, but his effectiveness depends largely on his sharing the enabling common life of the church. In other words, the more he is involved in the life of the church, the more effective he or she will be as a witness for Christ. Because it's the church as a whole that is the main impact in the community today, in society today. Now, in the first place, when we come to evangelism, the preaching in evangelism must of course always be Christ and not the church. Turn, first of all, if you will, to two Corinthians chapter four. The message must always be Christ and not the church. Two Corinthians four, verses five and six. There. Paul says, what we preach is not ourselves, nor the church, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves, as your servants, for Jesus sake. For it is the God who said, let light shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. And therefore we preach Christ, not the church, nor do we preach the Michael a belfry, nor do we preach Saint Cuthberts, nor do we preach any aspect of the church, nor individuals in the church. God forbid that we should preach Jesus Christ. That is the gospel. It is the gospel of Christ. The good news is the good news of Jesus Christ, and therefore that is the essential message of the church. The whole of the Bible is quite insistent upon this. This is the heart of our Christian message. Or turn back to one Corinthians chapter one. Verse twenty two to twenty four, one Corinthians chapter one, verses twenty two to twenty four. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks. Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And again in chapter two, verse two, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The title of the mission at Tunbridge that I've just come back from was Jesus Today's Man. And we found that kind of a title to be very, very helpful indeed, because all the time it brought us back to the fact that Jesus is is today's, uh, living savior. He's the one who's alive today. He's today's man. You've got to make up your mind about him today. And all the time we were helped to focus our attention in our preaching on Jesus Christ. That is the essence of the church's message. But having said that, having said that, the preaching and evangelism must be Christ in a real sense, you could say the purpose of evangelism is the church. The purpose of evangelism is the church because God is concerned not just with personal salvation, important though that may be, but with establishing his kingdom here on earth. That's his great concern. God wants a new society, a new community, to demonstrate to the fallen world what his plan for society really is. It's not just individuals finding Christ, but this is what his kingdom is all about. This is what society should be like. This is what community should be like. And to demonstrate it by its new lifestyle and by its new relationships. Turn to acts chapter two to illustrate this. In verse thirty eight, when they had been crying out after Peter's sermon, what shall we do? This is his little instruction talk that he gave, if you like, after his evangelistic service on that particular occasion. This is the five minute summary, as we sometimes have it in the Minster. Guest services. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You can sum it up with repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit. Now why is baptism so important when he is giving his instruction? Talk to those, of course, who weren't even nominally Christians at all. The answer is partly, of course. Baptism is a tremendous symbol, an outward and visible sign of the heart of the gospel. It speaks of cleansing of sin. It speaks of incorporation into Christ, of dying, to the old life, of rising to the new life. It speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is a very vivid symbol indeed of the the gospel, the heart of the gospel, the blessings of the gospel. But as well as that, baptism is the again outward sign of entrance into the church. It is the initiation into the visible church. In other words, one of the reasons why baptism is so important is that when you come to Christ, you also come to the body of Christ. When you commit your life to Jesus Christ, you are committing your life to the church. There is no such thing about individual salvation which doesn't involve incorporation into the church. And you see, therefore, in verse forty two, having been baptized in verse forty one, verse forty two, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. They devoted themselves to this. They rarely were concerned about it. I was thrilled today to have a member of the fellowship come to me and said that for some time he had come to Thursday evenings out of a sense of duty, because, you know, he got the message that I was trying to stress. It was quite important to come on Thursdays, he said. Frankly, it hadn't really meant very much to him, and he was quite as glad not to come on Thursdays, because it was just out of a sense of duty. But recently, he's come to see that his commitment to Christ really means commitment to the Body of Christ, and therefore to come together with God's people not only on Sundays, but on a gathering like this where we're coming to worship together and learn together and pray together and and so on together, minister to one another in love. This is a tremendously important thing. And he came to see that really, if he loved Christ at all, he must love the body of Christ. He must long to be with God's people. He said his whole attitude changed, and since then he's got such blessing from Thursdays. Now, I don't know that Thursdays have changed, but his attitude has changed. Instead of coming out of a sense of duty, he now comes because he sees that this is part and parcel of really belonging to Christ. And I think it's tremendous to see that our attitudes are right here. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And that could sum up what Thursday is as well as Sunday is all about again in verse forty seven, the end of verse forty seven that we frequently looked at in this series, the Lord added to their number or to the church day by day those who are being saved. If they were saved, they were added to the church. Automatic. The church is not a club, a club. You just go along there when you want to. You go and have a meal, you meet your friends or whatever you want to do when you want to. It's entirely up to you whether you go or not. And I belong to one or two clubs in the past, where I went about once a year because, you know, I just wasn't around or just didn't want to go. The church is not a club. It is a body of Christ. Or there are lots of metaphors which explain that the whole idea of the church is that we belong to one another. We're much part of one another as we are of Christ. Again, to quote Howard Schneider, there is no salvation outside the church unless the body of Christ be decapitated, separated from the head. The church is the body of Christ, the community of the Holy Spirit, the people of God. Therefore, if I claim any direct link at all, any personal link at all with God, father, Son and Holy Spirit, I must belong to the church. The Lord added to the church those who are being saved or turn towards the end of the New Testament. One Peter chapter two. Verses four and five. Verse four. Come to him, to Jesus, to that living stone, rejected by men, but in God's sight chosen and precious. That is what we're calling people to do in evangelism. Come to Jesus and like living stones, be yourselves built into a spiritual house. To be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And verses nine and ten. But you are not just a collection of saved individuals. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people that you together may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Therefore, you could say that evangelism is calling people into a relationship with Christ through the church. Calling them to be members of his body. Calling them to be living stones in his building. They belong to him and they belong to others, so that together we become a chosen race, a holy nation, God's own people. And if we miss this corporate life, then we've missed a major part of the purpose of evangelism. You can't come to Christ without coming to the body of Christ. And once you belong to the Body of Christ, you immediately belong to other members of that body. You can't help it, and that's tremendously important. William Barclay once said this that Christianity is unquestionably a personal experience, it is equally unquestionably not a private experience, this personal relationship with Christ. But as soon as we have that, we belong to one another. I've told you, I'm sure most of you have, probably several times about the time when I was in a church further up north, where a deaconess preaching on the body of Christ suddenly said, now will you stop in the middle of the sermon? Will you stop and turn round to the person next to you and say, I could not do without you? I was sitting next to an extremely beautiful girl I'd never seen before in my life, you know. So my wife will be glad to know that I'm not going to visit that church in the immediate future. But anyway. But there's a real truth in that. That I cannot do without you. You cannot do without me. You cannot do without one another. We belong to one another. We're part and parcel of the body of Christ. That's why follow up is not just an important addition to evangelism. Chris was saying how glad that she found that some of the students in various places were really getting going on follow up. It's not an addition to evangelism, it's part and parcel of Council of Evangelism. Indeed, if a person professes faith in Christ and some time later that person has not got involved increasingly involved in a local church or fellowship, one might well wonder whether or not that person is really converted. If they're not coming into the church, I have serious doubts as to whether they have a real vital Christian experience at all. Turn over just a few pages to one John chapter three. Half a dozen pages, perhaps. Verse fourteen. He gives in one John a number of tests of spiritual life, tests by which you can be sure that you've received eternal life. Here's one of them, verse fourteen of one John three. We know that we passed out of death into life. Why? Because we love the brethren. Because we love other Christians. We we love other people in God's family. He who does not love other Christians remains in death. Now, you can't love other Christians if you don't meet with other Christians. If you don't get involved with other Christians, and therefore it's part and parcel of evangelism to get involved with the church itself. The purpose of the evangelism could well be that could well be said to be the church. And then the agent in evangelism is also the church. Turn back to Ephesians three. The preaching and evangelism is Christ. The purpose of evangelism is the church. And now the agent in evangelism is also the church. Ephesians three verses eight to ten. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for all ages. For ages in God who created all things. Now what is this mystery? What is the message? What are the unsearchable riches of Christ? Verse ten that through the church The manifold wisdom of God might be, might, might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places and clearly in what else he's saying, not just in the heavenly places, but also here on earth. It's through the church that the whole message of the gospel is to be made known. And he goes on, therefore, in verses fourteen to twenty one, having this tremendous prayer, that the Christians might be united in love, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. Etc. in verse twenty one, so that to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. He then goes on in verses eleven and twelve of fourteen of chapter four, verses eleven and twelve saying, there are various gifts that are given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. And verses fifteen and sixteen that body should grow up together in love into Christ in all things. Why is he so important about this? Why is he so keen in seeing the church growing together in love in Christ, that it might proclaim Christ, that it might make known the gospel to the whole world until it is rarely united in Christ. It will not proclaim the gospel as it should be. You see, I think I mentioned in a previous session the very word body for Paul doesn't just mean a collection of arms and and limbs. The word body, the body of Christ means this. It means the means by which the head communicates itself. I communicate myself through my body. I'm speaking to you through my mouth, waving my arms around. I'm communicating to you through my body. How does Christ communicate himself today? It is through his body, the church. That's how he communicates his truth, his love. Everything about him today through the church. At one time, he was here literally in a physical human body. The word made flesh. Now he's not here in a literal, physical human body, but he is here in the church. This is the body of Christ. This is how he communicates. This is how he makes himself known through the church. Etch. And therefore it's very interesting indeed that the church becomes tremendously vital as a form of communication to the whole world. And Paul spends a great deal of time on this. I'll come back to that point in a moment. That's why evangelism should always be church based as far as possible. I know there are some places where it's simply impossible, but basically evangelism should be church based evangelism. Let me try to underline the tremendous importance of becoming a real warm, loving body of Christ, filled with the spirit, moving by the spirit flexible to what God is wanting to do. Today's world is changing at a fantastic speed in terms of technology, in terms of population pollution, all the rest of it. It's frantically changing. Culture changes every five years, we're told, and many people are absolutely bewildered by the speed of change today. I'm sure some of us from older generations find it increasingly hard to see the terrific speed of change. Everything is changing just so fast today and therefore today. And Alvin Toffler, in his book Future Shock, comes up with this very powerfully. Today, people can't cope with this change. And so they slip back into apathy or into loneliness, or into despair or into frustration, all sorts of things, because they can't cope with this change that's going on. Now the church, if it stays rigid in its structures, will also never, never be able to cope with change if it stays with a fairly rigid structure, a fairly rigid pattern of services, fairly rigid patterns of ministry, fairly rigid patterns of working, it will never, never cope with a change that's going on in the world. If I had a stick, a dry stick here, I have one in my case, but I've left it in the vest. Never mind. Imagine it. It will never cope with change. If I change the direction of that stick, it'll just snap in two. And today there are broken churches and broken clergymen because they don't know what the ministry is all about. They don't know how to communicate the gospel to the world because there's such a change going on and we still cling to our structures, or we try to have reform in structures, we have new methods of government, synodical government. We have. Series one. Series two. Series three. We have new patterns of ministry. Umpteen reports. The words that are written are unbelievable today and all the time we're trying to change our structures. And what people get so depressed about is how ever fast we're changing our structures. The world is changing in about ten times or one hundred times the speed. And so all the time, the communication between the church and the world, or between Christ and the world through the church is getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And for most people, the church doesn't begin to communicate because it's clung to structures and fairly rigid structures. It is not a vital, warm, loving body of Christ which it ought to be. Now the Spirit of God is a spirit of movement. He can move very fast indeed, and we've got to be so responsive to the Spirit of God that we know what he is saying today. And if we need any prayer for our church as well as the rest of the church, it's this that we should know what the spirit is saying today to the church and move with it. Unless we move with it, unless we become a warm, loving body of Christ which is relevant today, able to move today, able to change its seating arrangement in the parish fellowship today without all sorts of grumblings. I've sat in that seat in over fifty two years or something like that. We've got to move all the time. We've got to move all the time and be willing to go as the spirit leads us. And there are many, many things I believe the spirit is saying today, not least this question of coming together as a real warm, vital body of Christ. To take one little detail, which I think is very important for today. I don't want to hammer it too much, because it's certainly not for every person or for every family. But I personally believe that one of the things the spirit is saying today is this question of extended families. It's not for every family. Let me underline that very, very firmly indeed. But we remember Elaine saying the other day that she could not or did not want to evangelize because there were not the Christian families or Christian communities or loving fellowships into which to bring those who had found Christ from very disturbed backgrounds. So it's not just the latest craze from Houston. It is one of the things I deeply believe that the spirit is saying to the church today. We've got to listen to what he's saying, and he may speak to us in many, many different ways through what other Christians are doing, through words of prophecy, through the scriptures, many different ways. We must listen to what the spirit is saying and then be obedient to it. I've gone miles away from my notes. We must come back to it. Spirit. Spirit of movement. Now how can the church be really active and cut ice today? How can it have something which is going to be viable today and communicate today? How can it be God's new society? I would say there are two things we need to develop most of all. There are umpteen answers to this, no doubt, but two things I want to focus attention on first, new relationships. Second, new commitments. First new relationships. Is he thinking of the church as a community of Christ, a community of the Holy Spirit? I was very struck by something I read just the other day in the magazine. New covenant community is not things that you do. It is a relationship that exists among people. Until we are in a right relationship with one another, we cannot have genuine community even if we do the right things. And for too long, the church has concentrated on doing the right things, having the right meetings, having the right services. What God looks for is right relationships first and foremost. I believe this is far, far more important than doing the right things, having the right meetings, right relationships horizontally as well as vertically. One of the things I look for in mission work, in evangelistic work, more than anything else, is not the brilliance of publicity, not the special plan and structure of the meetings, but its right relationships amongst Christians. That is crucial. Absolutely crucial. Otherwise, we might not evangelize at all. You see, if you like the essence of the gospel concerns right relationships. You're probably in Ephesians four or somewhere around there. Turn back to chapter two of Ephesians. The essence of the gospel is is bringing people together where there are barriers barrier between man and God, barriers between man and man. And you see how he sums up what the gospel is all about in verses thirteen and fourteen. But now he says, In Christ Jesus, you who once were far off Great barrier between you and Christ have been brought near in the blood of Christ. He is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility. Well, you know what that wall was? It was a middle wall of partition which separated Jew and Gentile in the temple. And Gentile couldn't cross that wall into the Jewish part of the temple, except on penalty of death. Now in the cross, all those barriers have been broken down. The trouble is man goes along with with, with mortar and so on and tries to build up the wall all over again. But the barriers are broken down. In Christ. We can wonderfully come straight to God through the blood of Jesus. We shall come straight to one another through the blood of Jesus. The barriers are broken down, and the visible proof that the barriers broken down between ourselves and God will be seen. If the barriers are broken down between ourselves and one another, that's the visible proof. He who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. It's no good saying I love God unless I love my brother. That's the demonstration that God is real in my life and in my fellowship. We need to demonstrate that we really are one in Christ. Part of the great appeal of the early church was these barriers were broken down and most tremendous and wonderful way. They really were one in Christ. All the barriers of background, class, color, education, all those things were knocked down in Christ Remember I referred briefly to it in acts thirteen one. There you get. The prophets and teachers at Antioch consisted of these people who was an ex rigid Pharisee and an aristocrat, Barnabas, a former Levitical landowner from Cyrene. Lucius, a Greek speaking Jew. Sorry, the first one from Cyprus, from Cyrene, and Simeon, a swarthy black African. So contrast here. They were wonderfully in harmony. So much so, the spirit was able to speak through them and guide their church, because here were the leaders, wonderfully bound together in love. And one of the things that Harvey was talking about when he said, the leaders are learning. One of the things we're learning is we've got to be really very, very united indeed, because the quality of our unity will very largely determine the quality of the unity of the whole fellowship. The things are wrong in leadership. Things are wrong in the whole church so often. And these relationships in Christ are so vital that Paul spends most of his time in his letters, not telling people to evangelize, though he knew that was desperately important, but telling them to put their relationships right and get them right and keep them right. Most of his letters are taken relationships, because where those relationships are right, then that's going to be such a powerful witness to the world that God really is a God of love, and he binds people together in Christ. Michael Green once said this when he was talking about Paul and the others, really writing again and again to correct wrong relationships in the church. The speed and earnestness with which these these failures in fellowship were unmasked and reproved by Christian leaders is eloquent proof of the universal conviction. Notice that the extent and power of the Christian outreach depended on the unity and fellowship of the Brotherhood. Our effectiveness in evangelism depends upon the unity of our fellowship. That's really what counts most of all. I wonder if we've really learned that lesson. Are we seeking to put right any relationships which are wrong? God often speaks to us about this, but when we aim to have like Sunday evening, a guest service, it is just sheer nonsense. Going forward into that, unless our relationships are right, we are undermining the whole work of evangelism. If our relationships are not right. If there's any difference of opinion between person and person here tonight, for God's sake, literally. So put it right. Put it right. Otherwise, you are going right against the work of the gospel. And that applies to all of us. New relationships. Secondly, new commitments. Acts four, verse thirty one. Here to read verse thirty one, you see the context again is evangelism. When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God with boldness. Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul. No one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Well, we're constantly learning here how to be as committed to one another as we are to Christ. You see, if we really want the best for Christ, we can say this all that I have is yours, Lord. My time, my money, my possessions, my home. It's all yours, Lord. But if we really mean that, we should be able to say to another brother, brother. All that I have is yours. My time, my energy, my money, possessions. It's yours. That's what it means to love and serve Christ. We love and serve one another. We put all that we have for one another in order to serve and build up the body of Christ. And in these days of covetousness and self-seeking, which are the great marks of society today. The Christian community which rarely demonstrates this, will be the most powerful witness, because its quite contrary to the spirit of the world. This real sharing and commitment with one another. The New Testament Christians astonish the world with their generosity. Many of them were extremely poor, yet from their poverty there was this wealth of liberality, says Paul. They astonished the world with their care of widows and orphans, and sick and infirm. They astonished the world with their practical concern for prisoners and slaves, and for Christians in times of famine and persecution, for hospitality, for Christian travelers. They were known for sexual purity, for their hatred of injustice and cruelty, for being good citizens obedient to civic authorities. Tertullian once said this about the church one in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us except our wives. And yet, even there, apart from sexual relationships, we need to share our families with one another. We shouldn't be possessive about our wives or our husbands or our children. We need to share together and release people for service and ministry within the church. That's very important and many of us have to learn sometimes the hard way. Anyway, this whole concept of Christian community, of new relationships, of new commitments is of enormous power in evangelism. Without it, the finest gospel message in inverted commas will be quite ineffective. Let me just say a word in closing about the balance between the larger group and the smaller group in fellowship and evangelism. Because if you turn to chapter five, verse forty two. Says, every day in the temple and at home They did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. And same in chapter two, verse forty six, in the temple and at home. And although they had to cease worshiping in the temple when persecution really started, they still met in the large group and in the small group. The small groups vital if you're really going to develop the sense of belonging. And I hope that we see the importance of the area of fellowship, they really are vital. And practically all spiritual revivals have come through the development of home fellowships, Bible study, prayer, Christian discussion at the home level. Very, very important for spiritual renewal. But together with that, we need to come together in the larger number for worship and praise and prayer and learning together and sharing together in Christian ministry. Perhaps I can sum it up with a little visual aid that, um, uh, Howard Schneider gave in his paper to Lausanne. The Christian church in its expansion could be seen like this. There's got to be proclamation. You'll see why I put it like that. Uh, There's got to be a proclamation. So we are proclaiming by our life and by our words, by every different way, what the gospel really is. It's it's Jesus Christ. That proclamation should lead to more Christians, and forming small groups should lead to more groups and proclamation of Christ. And these groups should lead to increasingly effective evangelism, people being one for Jesus Christ. If those groups are doing their stuff, they won't just have groups in order to have meetings, but they will go on to build real communities of love and service. And building Christian communities is a tremendously important thing of our witness. As I've been stressing today, these in turn should lead to the development of spiritual gifts. Whole wide variety of spiritual gifts, which of course in turn will bounce back and strengthen the communities and spiritual gifts should lead to effective service in the world. Now this is something of a horizontal relationship, and it goes round and round like this. Proclamation leads to more groups and together to more evangelism. They should lead to building up communities. They should lead to more spiritual gifts to strengthen communities that should lead on to service, more proclamation, and so on and so on. Like that. Now the various dimensions that are missing there on our part, we should be concerned, considerably concerned with worship and prayer. So we're constantly maintaining a warm, loving relationship with our Heavenly Father as we worship and pray. So the ministry and the spirit will be released, and more and more the spirit will be working with power in our midst. And the whole thing, of course, must be centered upon Jesus Christ. That's just a kind of picture of how the church should work in evangelism. There should be this constant sharing and strengthening, building one another up not just horizontally, but also vertically, the whole thing centering upon Christ. Well, I hope in some measure we shall learn those lessons and continue to go forward as the spirit. The spirit of movement really leads us today.