 We're gonna continue tonight in our essentials series by considering the subject of evangelism. Before we do that, let's pray. Father in Heaven, thank you for this church and the fervent evangelists you've brought here. It is a joy to be with people who are concerned about the lost, concerned about your glory and you've just been so good to us. We're just amazed at your kindness. Help us, Lord, as we consider your word to us tonight to learn to love you more and serve you better. In Jesus' name, amen. So it's evangelism, one of my favorite topics. I couldn't resist picking this one from the list that Pastor Mark put out. And it's been a joy to just study it all week and sort of marinate in the word of God. The way I'd like to go about this tonight is to confront what I believe is one of the greatest deceptions, overwhelming modern Christendom today. That you can be a believer, a redeemed sinner, genuinely converted and on your way to eternal joy in heaven and never share your faith with people. We all know someone like this, right? Sometimes they bear other marks of unbelief, no interest in the word of God, no interest in fellowship with other believers and more, but sometimes they have many marks of genuine faith, except the desire to see others saved. So here's the proposition for tonight's consideration. If you are not evangelistic, you are not saved. It needs to be said, stated another way if you are not his witnesses, the spirit has not come upon you. You may recognize the illusion there to Acts 1.8. So let's turn to Acts 1 and look at verses 4 to 8. Acts 1, 4 to 8, and I'll be reading from the New King James Version. Acts 1, 4 to 8. And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you have heard from me. For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has put in his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Our particular focus will be on verse eight. We'll look at this Holy Spirit power at work under three broad topics. Proclamation, participation, and transformation. The coming of the Holy Spirit after Christ's ascension resulted in the proclamation of the gospel, just as Christ said it would. The coming of the Holy Spirit brought us into union with Christ and participation in his ministry of saving sinners, just as Christ said it would. And the coming of the Holy Spirit caused transformation in the hearts of believers that produced a desire to obey the commands of God, certainly including the Great Commission. Once we've seen these realities in scripture, we will, I believe, inevitably conclude that every truly converted Christian is a witness. We'll have to define this term witness as well as the word I used at the outset evangelistic, but at the same time we'll be able to conclude that the professing Christian who does not witness very likely is not a Christian at all. What is meant by being a witness? Luke uses the term in both his gospel and in acts in an active evangelistic sense. When Christians witness, they proclaim the gospel in an active, insistent way, encouraging listeners to receive and respond to their message in its simplest sense, it is speaking the word of God to people. And there's almost no circumstance in which we cannot make an effort in this direction. By the spirit of God overcoming our own fears and hesitations, and it may begin simply with giving a track. I think Charles Spurgeon may have captured the heart of the matter best when he said in an 1888 sermon, quote, it is a very material point in salvation to be saved from hardness of heart and carelessness about others. Do you want to go to heaven alone? I fear you will never go there. Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that. And it's really more than a wish as we're to be doers of the word and not hearers only. We can't go much farther than that in defining exactly what it looks like. I don't want to cross over into legalism about it, but let the word of God in your conscience be your guides. In a helpful series of sermons that Albert Martin preached, he took an hour to define what evangelism is. I recommend the series to you, it's good. He said, evangelism is communicating with words. The God revealed truths, which comprise the foundation and substance of the biblical gospel along with the promises, demands and entreaties which accompany that gospel. This issue of sharing one's faith is really monumental because there are tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions, who have a misguided assurance that they have indeed been saved from the power and consequences of sin who at the same time never share their faith, who are not evangelistic. Consider this observation from a 2018 study by Barna Group, which found only 19% of the people who identified as Christians said they were proactive about looking for or trying to create faith sharing opportunities with non-Christians. 19%, I think that's high. The good news is that it was up from 1993 when it was only 11%, but either way, we have 80 or 90% of people who identify as Christians, making no effort to share their faith, and I submit to you that they very likely are not converted. The most generous characterization of some of these people might be that they were simply poorly discipled. Maybe there is a desire among some that has not been acted upon, so there will be some exceptions, but I don't wanna soften it up too much. The dearth of evangelism likely comes as no surprise to many of us who have come out of false churches, preaching false gospels. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That's not evangelism. There's little discussion if any of sin, of repentance, of holiness, of obedience that characterizes true disciples, and so understanding what this verse Acts 1.8 says is critical. So let's first consider the significance of this point in redemptive history under our heading Proclamation. We'd see if we read just a little farther in this chapter, past verse eight, that Christ is about to ascend into heaven, and from the verses before this section, we read that Christ has been with the apostles for 40 days since his resurrection, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and now Christ tells them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait, and in verse eight he tells them why. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and what you shall be witnesses to me. What Christ is telling them, in effect, is that they will continue his ministry after his ascension. And it's interesting to note that in the first verse of this chapter, Luke uses the word began to describe all of what Christ had accomplished in the Gospel of Luke, Acts 1-1. The former account I made, Otheophilus, of all that Jesus began, both to do and to teach. The work had only begun at the very point in which Christ's ascension is about to occur. So we're to understand here, first, that the Holy Spirit would be sent to enable the apostles to continue the ministry. You shall be witnesses to me to the ends of the earth. And this is consistent with what Christ had said to them the night before his crucifixion, in John 14, in verses 26 and 27, he said, but when the helper comes, whom I will sin to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. So in Acts 1-8, Christ is speaking to the apostles 40 days later, just before his ascension. And so this promise is given most immediately, or this mandate is given most immediately to the apostles. But we'll see as Acts unfolds that there are implications for all believers. And what we can see, if we look at sort of the big picture here of Acts, is that this verse is an outline for the rest of the book as the gospel goes out first in Jerusalem, which we'll begin to see in just shortly after his ascension, and then to the rest of Israel, Judea, and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. And there are some markers in Acts that show this happening. It's kind of amazing when you just take a step back from all of the specifics that Acts records and you look at the progress. In Acts 6-7, then the word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and the great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. The spread of the gospel in Judea and Samaria includes this marker of its growth in Acts 9-31. Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. And then to the ends of the earth, these markers, Acts 16, verses four and five, where Paul meets Timothy while traveling through Derby and Lystra and other cities in modern day Turkey. So they've worked their way north from Jerusalem up to Antioch and Syria and north and west and to what's Turkey and then beyond and to Greece. But in Acts 16, four, five, and as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers in number daily. And finally, Acts 19-20, near the end of Paul's ministry in Ephesus, we read, so the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. So you see this power of the Holy Spirit at work. Working in the apostles, enabling the apostles, primarily Peter and Paul, of course, the leading men in Acts, to do the work, to preach the gospel, to continue the work that Christ began, overcoming all manner of difficulties and threats and obstacles. And as they preach the word of God through the spirit of God works in the hearts of thousands and all these places who were brought into the kingdom of God, into union with Christ, into the churches. There's this explosion. The gospel is just going out. And this is a period of maybe 30 years. And so it's clear and obvious that the Holy Spirit is working in these apostles for the purpose of spreading the gospel and building Christ's church. But we know that the Holy Spirit was not given only to the apostles. Every believer is indwelt by the spirit. And all believers, the apostles, as well as those in the church today, are indwelt by this same spirit who empowered the apostles and others. There were others, there were people in the church who advanced to the gospel. Consider 1 Corinthians 12, 13. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. So the Holy Spirit who came upon the apostles in Acts, as was promised in Acts 1.8, is the same spirit who comes upon the elect. But because of the way this unfolded in Acts, the work of the spirit is sometimes misunderstood. Not everyone experiences rushing wind. In fact, no one does anymore. That's how it happened at Pentecost. We don't hear or see the miraculous gifts at work in the preaching of the gospel as happened in Acts. And there's good reason for this. Pentecost is a unique event in history. One of the best explanations of why our experience is different can be found in Sinclair Ferguson's book, The Holy Spirit. In it, he characterizes Pentecost as a one-time event in redemptive history with implications for all Christians. So listen to this, he's very helpful. He's a very good teacher, recommend him. He said, just as the blood of Christ cleanses men and women from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, so the spirit flows from the ribbon side of Christ on Pentecost into Jerusalem and from there spreads throughout Judea, gathering momentum onto Samaria and indeed to the uttermost parts of the earth. All who come to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord receive the same gift as the disciples did. Consequently, believers enter into the implications of Pentecost just as they enter into the implications of Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension. So there's great cause to understand here that all believers shall be witnesses to Christ as the apostles were, but I haven't completely made my case. Some might argue that the spirit filled the apostles with a particular power for witnessing that was not given to others, but God answers that objection in chapter eight of Acts. Turn with me there and let's read the first few verses, one through eight, Acts eight, one through eight. At that time, a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church entering every house and dragging off men and women committing them to prison. Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the gospel, preaching the word, actually it says in the New King James. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them and the multitudes with one accord heated the things spoken by Philip hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits crying with a loud voice came out of many who were possessed and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed and there was great joy in that city. So there's a couple of things in particular to note here. In verse one we see that the church, everyone except the apostles was scattered. And in verse four we see that those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the gospel. This is very telling for us. Those who were part of the church went everywhere preaching the word. And Philip, this is the deacon Philip, one of the seven men of good reputation full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom chosen along with Stephen who had just been martyred in chapter seven, Philip preaches Christ too and multitudes were converted. He's a member of the church. The miracle signs apparently work with Philip's ministry as healings occurred, but he was not an apostle. Commentator David Peterson noted that the word used in verse four that's translated as preaching is the same word used in verse 25 to describe the work of Peter and John when they came to Samaria. This is important. The inclusion Peterson said formed by the use of this terminology in verse four and verse 25 indicates that the apostles and all who were scattered because of the persecution proclaimed the same message and were engaged in the same activity of winning people for Christ. Peterson goes on to say Luke implicitly challenges his readers about their own involvement in the great work of God. In Acts 11, there's another reference to those who were scattered preaching the gospel. And so what we've seen is that the apostles received power when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they became witnesses and the same Holy Spirit came upon all those who were being added to the church which produced in them the same result. They too preached the gospel. But does this mean that all believers will preach the gospel or to put it somewhat differently that all believers will speak the words of the Lord to those outside of the church? To this point we can say only that this is the apparent pattern but can we yet say that if someone is not evangelistic that person is not converted to get closer to that proposition. I'd have you consider another aspect of the Spirit's work and the elect under our second heading participation. The coming of the Holy Spirit brought us into union with Christ and participation in his ministry of saving sinners, of seeking and saving the lost. This is not the work of a few gifted evangelists though some clearly are gifted. This is the work of every believer in union with Christ. Look at turn to John 17 and look at verses 20 to 23 where Christ is praying. I've read this who knows a hundred times maybe more. But when I was thinking about it in the context of evangelism just there was new truth for me. Verse 20, John 17, I do not pray for these alone but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they all may be one as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be one in us. Why? That the world may believe that you sent me and continuing and the glory which you gave me I have given them that they may be one just as we are one. I and them, you and me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. We come into the spiritual union with Christ that the world may know that God the Father sent Christ. This is repeated twice here. This is evangelism. This is witnessing. Why are we in union with Christ? For evangelism, for proclaiming Christ to the world within the Godhead we know that there is perfect union, perfect unity and that unity is revealed in this passage and in others notably John 14. There's a connection with the mutual and dwelling of Christ and believers you and me and I and you from John 14 to the disciples and in John 17 I and them and you and you and me to God the Father. This mutual and dwelling. John O and the 17th century Puritan who fought among other things against the Roman Catholic Church for a right understanding of justification helps us to understand this union. He spoke of this union with Christ in volume five of his works in which he's laying the groundwork for justification and speaking specifically about the imputation of righteousness. John Owen wrote, the foundation of the imputation asserted is union whereby the Lord Christ and believers do actually coalesce into one mystical person. That is a helpful and powerful way to characterize our union with Christ. We understand the word coalesce to mean to come together to form one whole and its usage centuries ago the sense was more specifically to grow together as in becoming one. So it is as we think about our union with Christ there is a sense also of a shared being with him. I'm not suggesting we're somehow incorporated into the life of the Godhead to borrow a phrase from John Murray in the sense that we somehow share anything like their status or standing but one theologian put it this way. He said though in ourselves by nature we were spiritually dead in sin at a certain point in time God caused us to share the life of Christ and thus to become spiritually alive. In other words regeneration occurs when we are for the first time savingly united with Christ. So why this lengthy treatment of the union with Christ? Because when we're brought into union with Christ by his spirit we embrace his purposes and we can describe many purposes for which Christ came into the world but Luke himself quotes Isaiah 61 in his gospel chapter four verse 18 where Christ is reading verses about himself written 700 years before his incarnation and he said the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed. So this doctrine of union with Christ I think gets us closer to being able to support the proposition that if a person is not evangelistic that person is not converted. A person who is sharing in the life of Christ as one theologian put it and who is in union in a union that another describes as coalescing into one mystical person cannot possibly dismiss Christ's purposes highlighted in Isaiah. And here's the kicker. At the beginning of this discourse with the apostles in the upper room the night before Christ's crucifixion Christ says to them in John 14 12 most assuredly I say to you he who believes in me the works that I do he will do also. He goes on to say in greater works than these he will do because I go to my father we will do the works that Christ does if we're in union with him not as miracles. Let's not be ridiculous. Christ came into the world to save sinners and we're to continue the work that Christ began by preaching the gospel. There's more that we could say about participation and Noel Dalver has taught a lesson here some time back about union with Christ in Acts and I just wanted to make a quick note about that. It's interesting. The language of Acts 1 8 directed at the apostles picks up language from Isaiah 49 6. And so Acts 1 8 is alluding to Isaiah 49 6 speaking to the apostles. But in Luke 2 32 we also see an illusion to the same passage in Isaiah 49. So the words in Isaiah are I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. So Christ is the light in Luke. The apostles are the light in Acts and the apostles are our example to follow. So we've looked at the proclamation that happens when the Holy Spirit comes. We've looked at the work that the Holy Spirit does in bringing us in union with Christ and our participation in his ministry. But the last section, the last heading that I wanted to consider this under is transformation. The coming of the Holy Spirit caused transformation. Still it causes, he causes transformation in the hearts of believers that produces a desire to obey the commands of God and certainly including the great commission. Our union with Christ comes in the new covenant in which we receive a new heart, a heart of flesh replacing a heart of stone. You remember the verses in Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. And in Jeremiah, behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, for this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my law within them and write it on their heart and I will be their God and they shall be my people. The process here is regeneration and conversion of sinners who are made into new creations with new desires, believers who delight in the duties of obedience. And describing this new covenant, systematic theology professor Keith Matheson wrote, under the new covenant, God will write his laws on the hearts of his people to replace the sin that is presently written there. But that which is written by God on the hearts of his people remains essentially the same as that which was written on tablets of stone. That aspect of the law that most fundamentally reflects God's own righteous character always remains the same. How does God do this? He does it, the Holy Spirit does it. The application of redemption is the work of the Holy Spirit and that is exactly what we learn from Christ himself in John 3 verses five to eight. Jesus answered, most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water in the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the spirit. This transformation into what the Apostle Paul calls a new creation in 2nd Corinthians transforms a person who then responds to the Great Commission. The Great Commission as we have it in Matthew 28, 18 to 20. And Jesus came to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. This is a passage closely related to Acts 1-8. It's often grouped together with other Great Commission passages from Luke 24, John 20, Mark 16. But let's look at the language here in Matthew 28. This is clearly a command to make disciples. And the question sometimes comes up as to whether this command was intended only for the Apostles. D.A. Carson rightly notes that the Great Commission does not record Jesus saying to the Apostles, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you except for this commandment to make disciples. Not what it says. The Apostles were to make disciples and to teach these disciples how to make disciples. And this was to continue in order to reach all the nations which the Apostles alone did not accomplish. And this work continues in union with Christ by believers ever since then. And it will until Christ returns, until the end of the age. And just to be clear, the command was to go. It wasn't as you go. You should as you go, but you should also go. Greek scholar David Wallace makes this abundantly clear in his analysis of the language in the commission. He, I'll quote part of his explanation here without getting into the details of the attendant circumstance participle. I can hardly even remember that name, attendant circumstance participle, but I remember the point. So Wallace says, there's a myth foisted on the Christian public about the meaning of the Great Commission. It goes something like this. In the Greek, the word translated go is really a participle and it literally means as you are going, but the words make disciples are an imperative in Greek. That's the only imperative in these two verses. Therefore, this is the myth that's been foisted. Therefore, the Great Commission is not a command to go, rather it is a command to make disciples as you are going or make disciples along the way. The exposition based on this understanding of the Greek text then attempts to sav the consciences of the congregation, permitting them to do nothing about the lost if it at all means going out of their way. And that's what's happening. Most professing Christians are not going out of their way. The command is to go and to make disciples. And these were the Lord's last words to us before his ascension. And for the Christian who has been brought into the new covenant, who has been given a new heart, who's been brought into union with Christ, who's been enabled, who is otherwise weak to go. We've been enabled to go and we delight in the duty. We still have our sin nature that's arguing with us, you know, telling us, ah, just stay in bed. I've never been out evangelizing when I wasn't really glad that I went. It's a means of grace. That's another topic altogether. But the clearest statement of the transformation in the hearts of otherwise sinful men that I've read comes from Samuel Bolton, who wrote True Bounds of Christian Freedom in 1645. A classic work on the relationship between the law and the gospel. And some of you have heard me read this before in the West Side Group and in Essentials. It's worth repeating. Is it very well captures the reality of life for the genuine Christian? Bolton wrote, all delight in duties arises from a suitability of spirit and the doing of them. If there is no grace within the heart to answer to the call of duty from without, if there is no principle in the heart agreeable to the precept of the word, the heart will never delight in them. This then is the reason why a godly man conducts himself well in duty, not merely because it is commanded, but because he has the nature which truly and rightly responds to the command. Bolton is saying that the new nature we have in Christ as we're brought into union with him by the spirit is a nature that receives the law of God with delight. The law that confronted us as sinners, the law that was so wearisome for those hoping to earn God's favor through it. That law is understood and received in an entirely different light when we're in Christ. Bolton goes on to say the law of God which is in the book is transcribed into his heart, it is his nature, his new nature. So he acts his own nature renewed as he acts obedience. The eye needs no command to see nor the ear to hear, it is their nature to see and hear. The faculty of seeing is the command to see. So far as the heart is renewed, it is as natural for it to obey as for the eye to see or for the ear to hear. As natural to live in obedience as for the fish to live in water or the bird in the air. Thus, it is that we do not obey merely because obedience is commanded, the mere command is for such as have no vital principle in them, but we obey from a principle which God has implanted in us suitable to the commands of God. The heart and the command answer to one another. And so we see that the spirit's work that produces proclamation of the gospel, that produces participation in the gospel ministry of Christ and that produces transformation in the hearts of believers. This spirit will compel a true Christian to be a witness. The true Christian is one compelled by the witness, by the spirit to be a witness. One compelled by his or her union with Christ to participate in the ministry of Christ. One compelled to witness by his desire to live a life of obedience to the Lord. One compelled by love for God and love for the lost. If these patterns don't describe you, then perhaps you are of the sort of people that Spurgeon had in mind back in his 1888 sermon when he said, have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself, be sure of that. In a different sermon in 1860, Spurgeon preached these famous words. If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees imploring them to stay and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let no one go there unworn and unprayed for. The spirit of God is not working in you in these ways. Call out to God to give you a new heart, to accept you into his kingdom, even though you have nothing in you that merits such a grace and mercy. Call out to him to enlist you in his army. Repent and believe the gospel. If you've had this desire, but you're not acting on it, then call out to God to give you courage and wisdom and repent of your disobedience. Don't waste your life. Glorify God with it by being a witness to the Lord.