Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:1-21. The main subject of the sermon is the motivation we have for evangelism.
-sermon transcript-
Introduction
So this is the last special Sunday focus on evangelism. We have… We took five weeks in the middle of the sermon series in Galatians, and today I want to just do what I can to unfold 2 Corinthians 5 to you. The Book of Hebrews is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Of course, you say to me, “All of the books are your favorite book of the Bible,” and that may be true, but I love Hebrews and how it begins there. It says powerfully, “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.”
The awesome truth of the Bible is that there is one God, and only one God, this living God, the living and true God, creator of the universe, infinite in his being, incomprehensible, eternal, perfect and holy. Possessing life in himself, possessing all wisdom in himself, possessing love and power in himself. This one true living God speaks. He lives and he speaks. He speaks and the universe comes into existence. He speaks and his people come into existence. He speaks and salvation comes to the lost.
Now, this God, it says, has spoken in the past through the prophets at many times and in various ways. He spoke to Noah, commanding him to build an ark. He spoke to Abraham, commanding him that he should leave Ur of the Chaldees, and later that he should take his son and sacrifice him on a mountain that he would show him. He spoke to Jacob from the top of a ladder that extended from earth to heaven, he spoke to Moses from the flames of a burning bush, he spoke to Israel, the nation, the words of the 10 Commandments, when he descended in fire on the top of the mountain, and the ground shook beneath their feet. He spoke to David and moved him to write beautiful poetry in the Psalms. He spoke to Solomon, and Solomon spoke in Proverbs in words of pithy wisdom, spoke to Elijah in a still small voice, and then later in a fiery whirlwind that took him up to heaven. He spoke to Isaiah, he spoke to Jeremiah, to Ezekiel. He spoke to Daniel through an awesome, gigantic and glorious angel, whose glory was so overpowering that it took Daniel’s breath away and knocked him to the ground. God spoke in the past at many times and in various ways through the prophets. Now, in these last days, He has spoken one final word to the human race, and that Word is Jesus.
He has spoken Jesus Christ to the human race. And Jesus, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, and after he had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.” So Jesus is God’s final word to the human race. He is a word of hope and salvation to people desperate in their lost-ness, desperate in their brokenness, people who live every lives, though they may not admit it, who live every day of their lives in terror and fear of death. They’re enslaved to their fear of death.
Now, now that Jesus has ascended to heaven, now that he is at the right hand of God, and now that the day of Pentecost has come, and he has poured out his Holy Spirit on the church, ge is at it again, he is speaking through us as ge spoke through the prophets. He has poured out his spirit, and he speaks at many times and in various ways through us as though we were his ambassadors. God Himself being in us by the Spirit, making his appeal through us. As Paul says, “We implore you, we beg you, be reconciled to God.” God wants to use each one of us to do that kind of appealing, that kind of begging and pleading. He wants us through the Holy Spirit to care whether people, lost people are found. He wants us on fire from within, concerning the lost-ness of the world, and the fact that the Gospel has the power to change everything. He wants us to be his ambassadors. He has called each one of us to a thrilling external journey of worldwide gospel advance. He’s called on us to be in the game, to be involved. He’s called on us to be warriors in this warfare.
There’s a world of lost people around us every day, and it is our responsibility to bring them the Gospel. So this is the final sermon in this series on evangelism. It’s not the last time you’ll hear about evangelism though, we’re going to be talking about it. What I want to do is I want to lift up, I think, as I’ve studied over the last few weeks 2 Corinthians 5, the greatest single chapter on motivations for evangelism. It’s like a rich treasure box of evangelistic motivations, one after the other. Now, this sermon actually originally had three parts, I stripped out two of them, alright, stripped out the bad motivation section, stripped out the techniques and tools of the trade section that’s gone too.
A Rich Treasure Chest of Healthy Motives
Now all I’m going to do is just give you 17 motivators that just flow, 17! And not only that, but I’m going to preach shorter than usual because we’ve got a special time at the end for individuals who are involved in outreaching ministries at FBC to make an appeal to you to get involved in their ministries. So I need to leave even more time than I usually do in preaching. I was at a church recently, and up on the wall was this motivational poster, and it said, “Impossible, difficult, done.” That’s today’s sermon. So we’ll start with impossible, and then it’ll get difficult, and then we’ll find that it’s done. 17 motivators that flow. And what I want to do as we go through this just treasure chest of healthy motives. I just want to just zip by them. I’m not going to be able to unfold them. I want some of the mentions, the mere mentions to frustrate you and say, “Stop, wait a minute, I want to hear more about that.” I think all of them could be a great sermon in and of itself, any one of these.
But recently, a friend of mine gave me a DVD of an hour tour of Acadia National Park. Now, many of you have never been to Acadia, but it’s probably one of my favorite places on Earth. It’s a spectacularly beautiful national park. And it was an hour tour of all of the best spots in Acadia. So you’re taking an hour to see, take a drive along the spectacular rocky coastline of Maine, and then you’ve got Thunder Hole, and then you’ve got Seal Beach, and then you’ve got Sand Beach and Pebble Beach, and you’re going to go along there, and then you’ve got Precipice, which is the closest to rock climbing any normal person will ever get, and then you’ve got Cadillac Mountain where you can see the sunrise and sunset, and you can see that same rocky coastline. And in Bar Harbor, there’s all kinds of art shops and all that. One hour. Well, I’ve got half an hour to go through even more spectacular material, and that is 2 Corinthians 5. So let’s look at it. And what I want to do is I’m just going to ask the question again and again, why should we evangelize? And I’m going to find answers in this text to that question.
The Resurrection Body is a Certainty (vs. 1-5)
First, we should evangelize because the resurrection body is an absolute certainty. Now, you may fail to see the connection between the fact that someday we’ll be raised from the dead and that we should be active in evangelism, but there’s a clear connection in Paul’s mind. He begins this chapter in verse one, “Now, we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands.” He’s talking about the resurrection body. Verse four and five, “For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now, it is God who has made us for this very purpose.”
So the basic idea is this: because we will someday be in a resurrection body, enjoying the perfection, the fullness of our salvation, and because there is nothing that can stop that, no power in Heaven or Earth or under the Earth can stop the resurrection from the dead. What that means is that we will most certainly receive the goal of our faith, the salvation, not only of our souls, but of our bodies. It is 100% certain. So we should have inside us a glowing, radiant hope that causes us to live entirely differently, knowing that our most bitter enemies, sin and wrath and judgment and Satan and hell and death have all been destroyed, and we are free from them all.
“Because we will someday be in a resurrection body, enjoying the perfection, the fullness of our salvation…What that means is that we will most certainly receive the goal of our faith, the salvation, not only of our souls but of our bodies.”
So the great resurrection chapter, Paul draws this exact connection. Because we will most certainly be raised from the dead, we should be active in serving the Lord now. At the end of 1 Corinthians 15, he says, “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where O death is your victory. Where O death is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, here’s the application of that whole resurrection chapter. Verse 58, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” We evangelize because of the resurrection of the body. We know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. We are seeking the elect, we don’t know who they are, we preach the gospel, they will come to faith in Christ, and some day they’ll be in resurrection bodies, and so we. That’s why we evangelize.
The Indwelling Holy Spirit is a Deposit (vs. 5)
Second, we evangelize because the indwelling Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing that future. Look at verse five, “Now it is God who has us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” The indwelling spirit is a constant proof within us of our future glory, of the certainty of the new heaven and the new earth, the beauty of that world. We have a constant deposit, a down payment, a stipend check coming to us from our billions and billions of inheritance, and we are living off that little stipend check and it’s pretty generous, and we have our hearts filled with hope through the Holy Spirit. And he is guaranteeing that future, and he constantly urges us to know that we are loved by the Father, he is the Spirit crying out “Abba, Father,” and he gives us power to evangelize. The Spirit’s not afraid of anybody. He is Almighty God, and he lives within us and testifies that we are children of God and that we are God’s Ambassadors, and we have a deposit inside, proving this.
Walking by Faith, Not by Sight (vs. 6-8)
Thirdly, we evangelize because as a result of all of these things, we have learned to walk by faith, not by sight. We live a different kind of life as a result of these things. Look at verses six through eight, “Therefore we are always confident, and we know that as long as we’re at home in the body, we’re away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” So in the middle of that statement, Paul talks about his confidence, and he talks about how we live as Christians in this world. In this world, we will have trouble, in this world, we are away from the Lord; that means we don’t have face-to-face fellowship with him. That’s why Paul says, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain,” something better. So we’re away from Jesus in that sense, and we’re yearning and longing for our heavenly home, aren’t we? But as a result of that, we have learned to walk by faith, not by sight. We don’t look at the world the way everyone else does. We’ve learned to look at the world differently. And so we’ve learned to live differently. We walk by faith and not by sight.
And so, as a result, we see the purpose of our time here on Earth differently, and that’s why we evangelize. We evangelize because there are eternal issues at work here. We evangelize for that reason. And it’s a strong motivation to walk by faith, not by sight. Parenthetically, our faith gets stronger and stronger the more we’re in the word. The more you hear good preaching, the more you’re saturating your mind, memorizing Scripture, having daily quiet times, you’re going to better and better walk by faith, not by sight.
Pleasing the Lord (vs. 9)
Fourthly, we evangelize because it pleases the Lord. It just pleases the Lord. It brings God pleasure. And that has become the central motivator of our lives. Look at verse nine, “So we make it our goal to please him, whether we’re at home in the body or away from it.” This is among the most powerful motivators every Christian should have for everything they do. In Ephesians it says, “We should find out what pleases the Lord.” So we read the Scripture and we find out from his word what it is that pleases him. And we yearn to please him. We want Jesus to be happy with us. We want him to be pleased with how we live, not just generally, but every day, every moment. We want him to be pleased with the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart.
And it very much pleases the Lord when we lay down our lives for others, when we’re willing to be self-sacrificial and pay the price to see someone else brought to faith in Christ. The Greek word here for “make it our goal”, or “make it our aim” relates to a love of honor, relates to ambition. Paul says, “I’m clamoring for the honor of pleasing Christ.” That’s what he’s saying, somewhat like an athlete, an Olympic athlete, just yearning for the honor of a gold medal, or a soldier yearning for the honor of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Wanting something like that, there’s a yearning for honor. I want the honor of Christ expressing his pleasure in my life. I want him to be pleased with me.
Judgment Day Assessment (vs. 10)
And that brings me right to the fifth one. We evangelize because some day we’re going to give him an account for our lives. Someday there will be an assessing of everything we’ve said or done as Christians. Look at verse 10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.” Let me say this to you gently but clearly, every single Christian in this room underestimates Judgment Day. We underestimate what it’s going to be like when this verse is fulfilled in our case. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. This Judgment Day assessment, this Judgment Day accountability is consistently taught in the Bible.
People struggle with it too. I’ve had so many people quote me this verse, in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Well, it is true that there will be no condemnation for you as a Christian, but it is not true that there will be no accountability. It is not true that there will be no assessment. It is not true that you will not have to give an account for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. There’s a difference between giving Jesus an account and having Jesus say, “Depart from me, you are cursed into the eternal fire…” There’s a difference between those two.
And notice that it says, “We’ll have to give Hhim an account for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.” So the bad breaks into two categories, things that you did that you shouldn’t have done, and you have to give an account for that. But there’s also things that you should have done and didn’t, and you have to give an account for that too. When he sets up an evangelistic opportunity and you don’t do it because of selfishness, you’ll just have to give an account for it. Conversely, you give an account for the good things done in the body. Imagine him asking, “Here you were faithful, you stepped out, you were scared, but yet you showed courage and you evangelized, and it went very badly, and you got fired, or that person was never nice to you again, and yet you kept on evangelizing. How do you give an explanation for that?” And you know what you’re going to say at that point. “You worked in me, courage and boldness by your spirit. To God be the glory.” You’ll give him full credit.
And then you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to give you eternal rewards for those things that survive the fire of judgment. Read about it in 1 Corinthians 3, “But the gold, the silver, the costly stones, the things you do by faith for the glory of God, out of love for others, those things that survived the fire, you’ll have them to look at forever and ever.” And you know what those Judgment Day rewards will be? Praise from God. He’ll express his pleasure with you and he’ll say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done. You were bold, you were clear, you loved people enough to share with them. Well done.” Hey, let’s have as many of those as we can. Amen? Let’s store up treasure in Heaven. Store up as many evangelistic opportunities. Just be faithful. And if you get persecuted a lot, and if you have trouble a lot and all that, store up the courage and all the times you kept going anyway. To God be the glory. But we evangelize because there will be a Judgment Day assessment.
Fear of the Lord (vs. 11)
Sixthly, we evangelize because we, alone in this world, understand what it means to fear the Lord. We know what it is to fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Verse 11, it says, “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.”
Alright, by the way, that’s just a check, verse 11, just to check to be sure we’re not taking things out of context. Alright, we’re talking about evangelism, evangelism, evangelism. Should we be, maybe there’s another topic here? No, no, there’s no other topic. This whole chapter is about this, it’s about evangelism, reaching out with the gospel. In verse 11, he says, Because we know what it is to fear the Lord, we persuade others. Persuade them what? To repent and believe in Jesus, to be reconciled to God. That’s what he’s talking about, the whole chapter. Okay, so that was just a check. We’re in the right area, we’re not taken out of context, but the motivator here is the fear of the Lord.
“…knowing what it is to fear the Lord…” Now, what does that mean? Well, we understand the fear of the Lord in this sense: The wrath of God and the curse of God and the judgment of God, those things were motivators for us to flee the wrath, to come to Jesus. We ran to Jesus and we found refuge, and now we don’t fear God’s wrath anymore, but we know those thoughts. But we’re surrounded by people who aren’t thinking about that at all, they don’t know that there’s a wrath to come. We do though. So now we can fear on their behalf, say, “I’m afraid for you, I fear for you if you don’t repent and believe. I’m afraid what will happen to you if you don’t repent and believe this gospel. I’m fearing for us both, but I pray that God through the Holy Spirit would move you into the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom and that you’d flee to Christ.”
So we know what it is to fear the Lord. Jesus said in Luke 12, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing to you. I’ll tell you who to fear. Fear the one who after the death of the body has power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” So we do, as Christians, we fear him, but they don’t fear him, they’re not afraid to die in that sense, they’re not afraid. They might be afraid of the process of death, but they should really fear what happens after death, and we have to fear God for them and so we persuade others, we plead with others to flee the wrath to come.
The Love of Christ Compels Us (vs. 14)
Seventh, we are active in evangelism because the love of Christ compels us. Verse 14, “The love of Christ controls us,” “…compels us,” “…constrains us,” lots of different translations, just something grabs hold of us strongly and pulls us in a direction. Controls us, compels us, constrains us to do what? Well, to evangelize, like we’ve been saying, we’re pulled strongly. What does it? Well, the love of Christ. Now, NIV decides it for us saying Christ’s love, but I’m going to just go straight from the Greek here and say the love of Christ, because it brings us to a bit of a head-scratching mystery. There’s two different ways to understand the love of Christ compels us. It could be the love that Christ displayed… So as we get to see what kind of love Christ displayed on the cross, the way he died for us, that compels me to want to imitate him, and to lay down my life as he did. So that’s the love that Christ displayed compels us, or it could be our love for Christ compels us. The fact that we love Christ, the love of Christ, our love for Christ compels us. Jesus said, “If you love me, you’ll obey what I command you.” And Lord Jesus, you were seeking and saving the lost. This is what you’re doing in the world. I want to be involved. I want people to love you, Jesus. I want them to… And you want them, the elect, to be with you and to see your glory, I want that too. So we love you and I want to serve you that way. Which one? Does it matter? They’re both biblical themes. Let’s just say the love that Christ displayed and then the love He pours out in our hearts for him, both of those things compel us and constrain us and move us to evangelize.
Christ’s Death Puts Compels Us to Live for Others (vs. 15)
Eighth, Christ’s death compels us to live for others, frees us from selfishness. Verse 15, “For Christ’s love compels us because we’re convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” Verse 15, and he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. Now, I talked about this when I preached that single verse sermon on Galatians 2:20. I don’t know if you remember that. But in Galatians 2:20 it says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” What’s the next part? “I no longer live.” And I talked about that for a while. I no longer live, I don’t have an ambition for my own life anymore; an independent ambition, Paul is saying. I just live for this one thing: I live to please Christ. I live to serve him and to serve others. I don’t have a selfish ambition anymore, that’s what he’s saying there.
So all of us are so selfish. That’s the nature of the flesh. What’s in it for me? Every day, deciding what would I like to do today? You know, the idol of choice in the West, we have so much wealth and so much free time and so many options, and so we are so tempted towards selfishness, but this verse is a heat-seeking missile towards selfishness, blowing it up. 2 Corinthians 5:15, it says, “And he died for all that those who live, that’s us, should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised up.” Again, we should no longer live for ourselves, but for the lost, for suffering sinners who are harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. We should no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and was raised again. We should no longer live for ourself for selfish reasons, but so that we might evangelize. Basically, the excuses I make for not evangelizing, they’re ultimately, all of them selfish. It costs me something, it hurts me, it’s difficult for me. It’s just selfish reasons. I don’t want to be selfish. I really want to live like Paul did, free from selfishness.
Seeing People from an Eternal Perspective (vs. 16)
Ninth, seeing people from an eternal perspective. We evangelize because we now see people differently. Verse 16, “So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view or a fleshly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ this way, we do so no longer.” So we’re trained by all of this doctrine, all of these truths to just see people differently. We walk by faith, not by sight. And so we see people by faith and not by sight. We don’t see people the way that non-Christians see them. The very people that we live with, and work with, and shopped with, and watch games with, and travel with, those people are eternal beings. Every one of them is created in the image of God, every one of them, a sinner who has transgressed the laws of God, and every one of them will spend eternity either in heaven or hell, all of them.
In our natural way, we tend to look at people from a self-advantage point of view, What can this person do to further my agenda or hinder my agenda? And if they can further my agenda then they’re good and I’ll use them, but if they hinder, then they’re my enemy and I’ll oppose them and be mean to them. But that’s the way a natural person sees others, we don’t see people that way anymore, we’ve been liberated, we don’t see… We don’t regard people from a worldly point of view. We see people as eternally significant creations who someday are going to get separated from the others and will either be with the sheep or the goats. That’s how it’s going to be for them. We see them from that point of view, and therefore we’re going to evangelize. We once looked at Jesus from a carnal point of view, but we don’t look at him that way any longer.
Because We’re New Creations (Like Jesus) (vs. 17)
Tenthly, we evangelize because like Jesus, we are new creations. You, if you’re a Christian, you have been changed. You’re a different person. You’ve been transformed. 2 Corinthians 5:17 was the first Scripture verse I ever memorized with the Topical Memory System and the Navigators packet. I had been a Christian for two weeks, someone gave me that little card and 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation, the old is gone, behold, everything has become new.” And they wanted you to know right away that you’ve changed, everything is changing in your life, everything’s different now, and so I thought it’s an interesting verse to choose. Of all the verses in the Bible it’s the first one to have a new convert memorized, but it’s been with me ever since, and I just think about that. We are new.
Now, here’s the thing, Paul already called our bodies tents that are wasting away, that’s not new creation stuff. As a matter of fact, there is no new creation stuff in this world. Anything you can touch or see, whatever, that’s all old creation stuff and it’s going to get burned up, all of it’s going away. All of it. But if you’re a Christian, you have been born again and your soul, your true self is a new creation entity. It will survive the rest of your lives through judgment day and on into eternity, you are a new creation. And therefore you’re free from all of the burdens and the pressures and all of the wickedness of this world, you’re free from that, and you can fly above all of those depressing motivators, like a 747 pilot, breaking through the cloud cover, spending the whole day in bright sunshine when everyone else has cold drizzle, you’re a new creation, you can spend your life like that.
I love that story from Howard Hendricks, he saw a new believer and the person was just so gloomy and negative. You know your personality? I know. I don’t know. How are you doing? I’m doing fine under the circumstances, and he said, “What are you doing under there? Get up above the circumstances. Christians don’t live under the circumstances. Break through the cloud cover. Get up above where it’s bright sunshine all the time. You’re a new creation, not under the same things others are.” And so we just think about life differently. People need to see that kind of hope glowing inside you so they can ask you to give a reason for it.
Because We’re Reconciled to God (vs. 18)
Number 11, we evangelize because we ourselves have been reconciled to God. Verse 18, “All this is from God…” What a great statement that is, I could spend a whole sermon on just that. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry”. We’ll talk about that. But we are reconciled to God. Now, what is reconciliation? Well, it’s all about relationship. If you have two individuals and they’re at odds with each other, they’re acting like enemies, they’re in conflict, and then some things happened so that their relationship is healed, and they act like friends and they speak kindly and lovingly to one another, and they have kind thoughts in their hearts toward one another, and their love is restored for one other, that’s reconciliation. That’s what it is. And so it is with us. We were God’s enemies.
In Colossians 1:21-22, it says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation.” So now we are no longer God’s enemies, but we are now more than just his friends, we are adopted into his family. We are sons and daughters of the Living God, we have been reconciled. Okay, how is that a motivator for evangelism? Because we want others to also have that same experience. We know how sweet it is to know that our sins are forgiven, how sweet it is to know that God is no longer angry judge, but now loving Father. How sweet that is, and we want others to experience that same thing.
Because God Has Given Us the Ministry of Reconciliation (vs. 18-19)
And so 12, we evangelize because God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Verse 18-19, “All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” This is an incredible idea. This is the one, this concept has just captivated me, the idea that God has entrusted this ministry of reconciliation to us and is in us now by the Spirit doing that work. That’s awesome. So God sees the world and outside of Christ there his enemies, and he has entrusted to the gospel message of Christ, incarnate by the Holy Spirit, living a sinless life, dying on the cross, and atoning death, raised from the dead on the third day. That message of the gospel, that repentance and faith in him, all forgiveness of sins comes through repentance and faith in him.
Romans 1:16 says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation.” What Paul would say here, power of God for reconciliation, all of that, God’s like handed the keys over to us. That’s awesome. Now, he is sovereign over all, that he controls it all. But he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. So we have this call to evangelism and missions, the external journey.
Because God Has the Whole World in View (vs. 19)
Thirteenth, we evangelize because God has the whole world in view. Verse 19, “…that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ…” It’s got to keep moving out, this is an eternal journey, an infinite journey. We’re just going to keep going. There’s always going to be more work to do until Jesus comes back. And so we care about missions, we care about others, and we care about evangelism for the same reason. This isn’t a local salvation, this isn’t just for you or just for us in this club, a small exclusive club, but there’s a pressure, a drive to move out even to the ends of the earth with this message.
Because Forgiveness of Sins for Others Awaits Our Efforts (vs. 19)
Fourteenth, we evangelize because forgiveness of sins for others awaits our efforts. Look at verse 19 again, “…that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their sins against them.” I mean, how guilty do non-Christians feel? How does their conscience assault them? How they are filled with regrets? How they are aware, at least to some degree, of the bondage and the chains that hold them back? They know that they’re miserable in sin, maybe not like they should, and that we get to come and say that God in Christ is willing to forgive all their adulteries and all their fornication, and all their lies, and all their idolatries, and all their selfishness and irritability, and all the times they’ve shown anger, and all the bad words they’ve spoken. He’s able to take all of it and cover it in the blood of Jesus. He’s willing to take all of their sins and throw them in the depths of the sea. He is willing to move them as far away from him as the east is from the west, and that’s awesome. We get to evangelize and be there at that moment when they receive the gift of forgiveness of sins.
Because We Are Christ’s Ambassadors (vs. 20)
Fifteenth, we evangelize because we are Christ’s ambassadors. Verse 20, we evangelize because we have an official position in the kingdom here, we’re ambassadors, we’re officially credited ambassadors to this world in the coming kingdom of Christ. We represent the coming King, and we have the right to proclaim a message of forgiveness in his name. We have authority, you realize? As ambassadors, we have the authority to command people to repent. You realize that? Think about that. In Acts 17:30, Paul said in Athens, “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” The more you meditate on that, the more courage you get in evangelism. What do you have to fear? You are out there as a representative of the King, and the King is graciously offering rebels a chance to lay down their weapons of rebellion and with amnesty be brought back into the kingdom with complete forgiveness.
We get to say that, but we are commanding them to lay down their weapons of rebellion, we’re commanding them to repent. And we have the authority to announce to them whether their sins are forgiven or not. Isn’t that incredible? We actually get to tell them that their sins are forgiven or not. In John 20:23, he says, “If you forgive anyone their sins, they’re forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they’re not forgiven.” We don’t do the ultimate forgiving, we’re just ambassadors, we’re giving the message. And if you listen to my gospel and you don’t believe it, you’re still in your sins. And we have to tell people that, but if they listen and they repent and believe, we can tell them that their sins are forgiven, and that’s why we evangelize.
Because God is Pleading With People Through Us (vs. 20)
Sixteenth, we evangelize because God through his Spirit is inside us, pleading with people, “…Be reconciled to God.” I have felt this, this burning desire that a total stranger become a Christian. I felt it, I was on an airplane and I had a great conversation with this guy, he was very interested, asked lots of questions, and at the end of that time, about an hour… Look, I only do hours with people who want it, I don’t force it on people, alright? But this guy was an interesting conversation, he was asking, bringing up all kinds of objections, we were having a great time, we were in our final approach, I knew we were just about done and he said, “Why do you care so much?” ‘Cause he could tell I wasn’t being inappropriate, but I was into it, alright? And he could say, “Why do you care?” I said, “This may seem strange to you, ’cause I’ve never met you, and in a few minutes, I’ll probably never see you again, but I really want you to be with me in heaven. I really would like to sit down with you at that banqueting table and look at the Savior and just know your sins are forgiven. I want to celebrate with you forever. I really want that.”
And I know the reason why is that because God was in me pleading with this guy to be reconciled to God. And that’s a sweet thing. It’s powerful. Now, I have a lot of other verses, I don’t have time for here, but God wants us to feel what it feels like for him to be God and be rejected, to “stand all day long and hold out your hands to a disobedient, obstinate people,” Romans 10. To “have the insults that have fallen on him, fall on us,” Romans 15. To have a stand outside the city gate and bear the reproach he bore, he wants that, but he also positively wants us to enjoy conversions and salvations like he does, as though God himself were making his appeal.
Because of the Perfection of Christ’s Atonement (vs. 21)
And then finally, because of the perfection of the gospel. Because of the perfection of the gospel. Verse 21, we evangelize because we get to preach this kind of message: “God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” That’s the centerpiece, the exchange. Our sins lifted from us and laid on Jesus, and he die. His righteousness given to us like a perfect beautiful robe and we stand in it forever. Alright, 17 motivators.
Developing a Culture of Evangelism
The Elders Want to BUILD on this month… not that it would just float away
One last thing I want to say to you and then I’ll be done, we’re going to have some folks come up here. We yearn as elders to see a culture of evangelism develop here. We don’t just want five or six people as a result of this month-long emphasis, five or six people to be converted and get baptized. Hey, look, we’d take the five or six people, we’d be thrilled about that. We’re excited about that, but that we want more than that.
Many State the Goal in this Language: a “Culture of Evangelism”
We want a whole culture of evangelism. What does that mean? It means that evangelism just kind of permeates the atmosphere of everything we do, it permeates the atmosphere of this ministry, that we’re thinking about it all the time, we are learning all the time how to be better evangelists. We are reading books on it, we’re discussing it, it’s involved in the sermons.
“We want a whole culture of evangelism. What does that mean? It means that evangelism just kind of permeates the atmosphere of everything we do.”
Now, it doesn’t mean that it’ll be all I preach on, it doesn’t mean that. I believe we must keep the two journeys side by side, I want to keep feeding the flock to grow up to full maturity so I’m going to preach verse by verse expositional sermons, but every week, as I’ve been doing for years, I’m going to break off and make the gospel clear to people who need to come to faith in Christ, I’m going to do that.
Applications & Closing Remarks
But meanwhile, we’re going to increase our contact with the gospel in terms of evangelism, in terms of BFL training, home fellowship. I think it’d be great if every home fellowship people asked, “Who are you having a gospel conversation? Who did you have a gospel conversation with this week? What’s the person’s name? How can we pray?” “Well, I didn’t have one this week.” “Okay, how can we pray for you that you would have one this upcoming week” Say, Well, there’s some pressure there. Mm-hmm. Yeah, positive peer pressure, you know? We desire to be an example to others, examples create pressure and others to do the same thing. We want to have that pressure.
And so, pleasant… Never guilt. Guilt is not a good motivator. But we say, “How can I pray for you?” It’s like, “Honestly, I just am too afraid to open my mouth.” Okay, can I pray that God will give you some boldness just to have a friendly conversation this week? Let’s start there. Not even evangelistic, but just that you reached out and had a conversation. Culture evangelism, that we’re continually praying for this person at the convenience store, this mother in the playgroup that we’re with together, this co-worker that I work with, that we’re talking about these things all the time. Now, I’m going to pray, and in a minute, Ryan’s going to come up here and some people who are involved in outreaching ministries at FBC are going to come and talk about their ministries, and our desire is, if you want to piggyback on existing work that people have already done in which they are regularly meeting lost people, and you want to get part of that, that’s a great way to grow in evangelism, and they’re going to tell you different ways you can do it. Let’s close in prayer.
Father, we thank you for the things that we’ve learned today. We thank you for the Word of God, and we ask, O Lord, that you would please help us to be filled with the Spirit and to be joyful, and to be effective and powerful in evangelism, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
-sermon transcript-
Introduction
So this is the last special Sunday focus on evangelism. We have… We took five weeks in the middle of the sermon series in Galatians, and today I want to just do what I can to unfold 2 Corinthians 5 to you. The Book of Hebrews is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Of course, you say to me, “All of the books are your favorite book of the Bible,” and that may be true, but I love Hebrews and how it begins there. It says powerfully, “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.”
The awesome truth of the Bible is that there is one God, and only one God, this living God, the living and true God, creator of the universe, infinite in his being, incomprehensible, eternal, perfect and holy. Possessing life in himself, possessing all wisdom in himself, possessing love and power in himself. This one true living God speaks. He lives and he speaks. He speaks and the universe comes into existence. He speaks and his people come into existence. He speaks and salvation comes to the lost.
Now, this God, it says, has spoken in the past through the prophets at many times and in various ways. He spoke to Noah, commanding him to build an ark. He spoke to Abraham, commanding him that he should leave Ur of the Chaldees, and later that he should take his son and sacrifice him on a mountain that he would show him. He spoke to Jacob from the top of a ladder that extended from earth to heaven, he spoke to Moses from the flames of a burning bush, he spoke to Israel, the nation, the words of the 10 Commandments, when he descended in fire on the top of the mountain, and the ground shook beneath their feet. He spoke to David and moved him to write beautiful poetry in the Psalms. He spoke to Solomon, and Solomon spoke in Proverbs in words of pithy wisdom, spoke to Elijah in a still small voice, and then later in a fiery whirlwind that took him up to heaven. He spoke to Isaiah, he spoke to Jeremiah, to Ezekiel. He spoke to Daniel through an awesome, gigantic and glorious angel, whose glory was so overpowering that it took Daniel’s breath away and knocked him to the ground. God spoke in the past at many times and in various ways through the prophets. Now, in these last days, He has spoken one final word to the human race, and that Word is Jesus.
He has spoken Jesus Christ to the human race. And Jesus, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, and after he had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.” So Jesus is God’s final word to the human race. He is a word of hope and salvation to people desperate in their lost-ness, desperate in their brokenness, people who live every lives, though they may not admit it, who live every day of their lives in terror and fear of death. They’re enslaved to their fear of death.
Now, now that Jesus has ascended to heaven, now that he is at the right hand of God, and now that the day of Pentecost has come, and he has poured out his Holy Spirit on the church, ge is at it again, he is speaking through us as ge spoke through the prophets. He has poured out his spirit, and he speaks at many times and in various ways through us as though we were his ambassadors. God Himself being in us by the Spirit, making his appeal through us. As Paul says, “We implore you, we beg you, be reconciled to God.” God wants to use each one of us to do that kind of appealing, that kind of begging and pleading. He wants us through the Holy Spirit to care whether people, lost people are found. He wants us on fire from within, concerning the lost-ness of the world, and the fact that the Gospel has the power to change everything. He wants us to be his ambassadors. He has called each one of us to a thrilling external journey of worldwide gospel advance. He’s called on us to be in the game, to be involved. He’s called on us to be warriors in this warfare.
There’s a world of lost people around us every day, and it is our responsibility to bring them the Gospel. So this is the final sermon in this series on evangelism. It’s not the last time you’ll hear about evangelism though, we’re going to be talking about it. What I want to do is I want to lift up, I think, as I’ve studied over the last few weeks 2 Corinthians 5, the greatest single chapter on motivations for evangelism. It’s like a rich treasure box of evangelistic motivations, one after the other. Now, this sermon actually originally had three parts, I stripped out two of them, alright, stripped out the bad motivation section, stripped out the techniques and tools of the trade section that’s gone too.
A Rich Treasure Chest of Healthy Motives
Now all I’m going to do is just give you 17 motivators that just flow, 17! And not only that, but I’m going to preach shorter than usual because we’ve got a special time at the end for individuals who are involved in outreaching ministries at FBC to make an appeal to you to get involved in their ministries. So I need to leave even more time than I usually do in preaching. I was at a church recently, and up on the wall was this motivational poster, and it said, “Impossible, difficult, done.” That’s today’s sermon. So we’ll start with impossible, and then it’ll get difficult, and then we’ll find that it’s done. 17 motivators that flow. And what I want to do as we go through this just treasure chest of healthy motives. I just want to just zip by them. I’m not going to be able to unfold them. I want some of the mentions, the mere mentions to frustrate you and say, “Stop, wait a minute, I want to hear more about that.” I think all of them could be a great sermon in and of itself, any one of these.
But recently, a friend of mine gave me a DVD of an hour tour of Acadia National Park. Now, many of you have never been to Acadia, but it’s probably one of my favorite places on Earth. It’s a spectacularly beautiful national park. And it was an hour tour of all of the best spots in Acadia. So you’re taking an hour to see, take a drive along the spectacular rocky coastline of Maine, and then you’ve got Thunder Hole, and then you’ve got Seal Beach, and then you’ve got Sand Beach and Pebble Beach, and you’re going to go along there, and then you’ve got Precipice, which is the closest to rock climbing any normal person will ever get, and then you’ve got Cadillac Mountain where you can see the sunrise and sunset, and you can see that same rocky coastline. And in Bar Harbor, there’s all kinds of art shops and all that. One hour. Well, I’ve got half an hour to go through even more spectacular material, and that is 2 Corinthians 5. So let’s look at it. And what I want to do is I’m just going to ask the question again and again, why should we evangelize? And I’m going to find answers in this text to that question.
The Resurrection Body is a Certainty (vs. 1-5)
First, we should evangelize because the resurrection body is an absolute certainty. Now, you may fail to see the connection between the fact that someday we’ll be raised from the dead and that we should be active in evangelism, but there’s a clear connection in Paul’s mind. He begins this chapter in verse one, “Now, we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands.” He’s talking about the resurrection body. Verse four and five, “For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now, it is God who has made us for this very purpose.”
So the basic idea is this: because we will someday be in a resurrection body, enjoying the perfection, the fullness of our salvation, and because there is nothing that can stop that, no power in Heaven or Earth or under the Earth can stop the resurrection from the dead. What that means is that we will most certainly receive the goal of our faith, the salvation, not only of our souls, but of our bodies. It is 100% certain. So we should have inside us a glowing, radiant hope that causes us to live entirely differently, knowing that our most bitter enemies, sin and wrath and judgment and Satan and hell and death have all been destroyed, and we are free from them all.
“Because we will someday be in a resurrection body, enjoying the perfection, the fullness of our salvation…What that means is that we will most certainly receive the goal of our faith, the salvation, not only of our souls but of our bodies.”
So the great resurrection chapter, Paul draws this exact connection. Because we will most certainly be raised from the dead, we should be active in serving the Lord now. At the end of 1 Corinthians 15, he says, “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where O death is your victory. Where O death is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, here’s the application of that whole resurrection chapter. Verse 58, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” We evangelize because of the resurrection of the body. We know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. We are seeking the elect, we don’t know who they are, we preach the gospel, they will come to faith in Christ, and some day they’ll be in resurrection bodies, and so we. That’s why we evangelize.
The Indwelling Holy Spirit is a Deposit (vs. 5)
Second, we evangelize because the indwelling Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing that future. Look at verse five, “Now it is God who has us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” The indwelling spirit is a constant proof within us of our future glory, of the certainty of the new heaven and the new earth, the beauty of that world. We have a constant deposit, a down payment, a stipend check coming to us from our billions and billions of inheritance, and we are living off that little stipend check and it’s pretty generous, and we have our hearts filled with hope through the Holy Spirit. And he is guaranteeing that future, and he constantly urges us to know that we are loved by the Father, he is the Spirit crying out “Abba, Father,” and he gives us power to evangelize. The Spirit’s not afraid of anybody. He is Almighty God, and he lives within us and testifies that we are children of God and that we are God’s Ambassadors, and we have a deposit inside, proving this.
Walking by Faith, Not by Sight (vs. 6-8)
Thirdly, we evangelize because as a result of all of these things, we have learned to walk by faith, not by sight. We live a different kind of life as a result of these things. Look at verses six through eight, “Therefore we are always confident, and we know that as long as we’re at home in the body, we’re away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” So in the middle of that statement, Paul talks about his confidence, and he talks about how we live as Christians in this world. In this world, we will have trouble, in this world, we are away from the Lord; that means we don’t have face-to-face fellowship with him. That’s why Paul says, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain,” something better. So we’re away from Jesus in that sense, and we’re yearning and longing for our heavenly home, aren’t we? But as a result of that, we have learned to walk by faith, not by sight. We don’t look at the world the way everyone else does. We’ve learned to look at the world differently. And so we’ve learned to live differently. We walk by faith and not by sight.
And so, as a result, we see the purpose of our time here on Earth differently, and that’s why we evangelize. We evangelize because there are eternal issues at work here. We evangelize for that reason. And it’s a strong motivation to walk by faith, not by sight. Parenthetically, our faith gets stronger and stronger the more we’re in the word. The more you hear good preaching, the more you’re saturating your mind, memorizing Scripture, having daily quiet times, you’re going to better and better walk by faith, not by sight.
Pleasing the Lord (vs. 9)
Fourthly, we evangelize because it pleases the Lord. It just pleases the Lord. It brings God pleasure. And that has become the central motivator of our lives. Look at verse nine, “So we make it our goal to please him, whether we’re at home in the body or away from it.” This is among the most powerful motivators every Christian should have for everything they do. In Ephesians it says, “We should find out what pleases the Lord.” So we read the Scripture and we find out from his word what it is that pleases him. And we yearn to please him. We want Jesus to be happy with us. We want him to be pleased with how we live, not just generally, but every day, every moment. We want him to be pleased with the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart.
And it very much pleases the Lord when we lay down our lives for others, when we’re willing to be self-sacrificial and pay the price to see someone else brought to faith in Christ. The Greek word here for “make it our goal”, or “make it our aim” relates to a love of honor, relates to ambition. Paul says, “I’m clamoring for the honor of pleasing Christ.” That’s what he’s saying, somewhat like an athlete, an Olympic athlete, just yearning for the honor of a gold medal, or a soldier yearning for the honor of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Wanting something like that, there’s a yearning for honor. I want the honor of Christ expressing his pleasure in my life. I want him to be pleased with me.
Judgment Day Assessment (vs. 10)
And that brings me right to the fifth one. We evangelize because some day we’re going to give him an account for our lives. Someday there will be an assessing of everything we’ve said or done as Christians. Look at verse 10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.” Let me say this to you gently but clearly, every single Christian in this room underestimates Judgment Day. We underestimate what it’s going to be like when this verse is fulfilled in our case. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. This Judgment Day assessment, this Judgment Day accountability is consistently taught in the Bible.
People struggle with it too. I’ve had so many people quote me this verse, in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Well, it is true that there will be no condemnation for you as a Christian, but it is not true that there will be no accountability. It is not true that there will be no assessment. It is not true that you will not have to give an account for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. There’s a difference between giving Jesus an account and having Jesus say, “Depart from me, you are cursed into the eternal fire…” There’s a difference between those two.
And notice that it says, “We’ll have to give Hhim an account for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.” So the bad breaks into two categories, things that you did that you shouldn’t have done, and you have to give an account for that. But there’s also things that you should have done and didn’t, and you have to give an account for that too. When he sets up an evangelistic opportunity and you don’t do it because of selfishness, you’ll just have to give an account for it. Conversely, you give an account for the good things done in the body. Imagine him asking, “Here you were faithful, you stepped out, you were scared, but yet you showed courage and you evangelized, and it went very badly, and you got fired, or that person was never nice to you again, and yet you kept on evangelizing. How do you give an explanation for that?” And you know what you’re going to say at that point. “You worked in me, courage and boldness by your spirit. To God be the glory.” You’ll give him full credit.
And then you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to give you eternal rewards for those things that survive the fire of judgment. Read about it in 1 Corinthians 3, “But the gold, the silver, the costly stones, the things you do by faith for the glory of God, out of love for others, those things that survived the fire, you’ll have them to look at forever and ever.” And you know what those Judgment Day rewards will be? Praise from God. He’ll express his pleasure with you and he’ll say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done. You were bold, you were clear, you loved people enough to share with them. Well done.” Hey, let’s have as many of those as we can. Amen? Let’s store up treasure in Heaven. Store up as many evangelistic opportunities. Just be faithful. And if you get persecuted a lot, and if you have trouble a lot and all that, store up the courage and all the times you kept going anyway. To God be the glory. But we evangelize because there will be a Judgment Day assessment.
Fear of the Lord (vs. 11)
Sixthly, we evangelize because we, alone in this world, understand what it means to fear the Lord. We know what it is to fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Verse 11, it says, “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.”
Alright, by the way, that’s just a check, verse 11, just to check to be sure we’re not taking things out of context. Alright, we’re talking about evangelism, evangelism, evangelism. Should we be, maybe there’s another topic here? No, no, there’s no other topic. This whole chapter is about this, it’s about evangelism, reaching out with the gospel. In verse 11, he says, Because we know what it is to fear the Lord, we persuade others. Persuade them what? To repent and believe in Jesus, to be reconciled to God. That’s what he’s talking about, the whole chapter. Okay, so that was just a check. We’re in the right area, we’re not taken out of context, but the motivator here is the fear of the Lord.
“…knowing what it is to fear the Lord…” Now, what does that mean? Well, we understand the fear of the Lord in this sense: The wrath of God and the curse of God and the judgment of God, those things were motivators for us to flee the wrath, to come to Jesus. We ran to Jesus and we found refuge, and now we don’t fear God’s wrath anymore, but we know those thoughts. But we’re surrounded by people who aren’t thinking about that at all, they don’t know that there’s a wrath to come. We do though. So now we can fear on their behalf, say, “I’m afraid for you, I fear for you if you don’t repent and believe. I’m afraid what will happen to you if you don’t repent and believe this gospel. I’m fearing for us both, but I pray that God through the Holy Spirit would move you into the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom and that you’d flee to Christ.”
So we know what it is to fear the Lord. Jesus said in Luke 12, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing to you. I’ll tell you who to fear. Fear the one who after the death of the body has power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” So we do, as Christians, we fear him, but they don’t fear him, they’re not afraid to die in that sense, they’re not afraid. They might be afraid of the process of death, but they should really fear what happens after death, and we have to fear God for them and so we persuade others, we plead with others to flee the wrath to come.
The Love of Christ Compels Us (vs. 14)
Seventh, we are active in evangelism because the love of Christ compels us. Verse 14, “The love of Christ controls us,” “…compels us,” “…constrains us,” lots of different translations, just something grabs hold of us strongly and pulls us in a direction. Controls us, compels us, constrains us to do what? Well, to evangelize, like we’ve been saying, we’re pulled strongly. What does it? Well, the love of Christ. Now, NIV decides it for us saying Christ’s love, but I’m going to just go straight from the Greek here and say the love of Christ, because it brings us to a bit of a head-scratching mystery. There’s two different ways to understand the love of Christ compels us. It could be the love that Christ displayed… So as we get to see what kind of love Christ displayed on the cross, the way he died for us, that compels me to want to imitate him, and to lay down my life as he did. So that’s the love that Christ displayed compels us, or it could be our love for Christ compels us. The fact that we love Christ, the love of Christ, our love for Christ compels us. Jesus said, “If you love me, you’ll obey what I command you.” And Lord Jesus, you were seeking and saving the lost. This is what you’re doing in the world. I want to be involved. I want people to love you, Jesus. I want them to… And you want them, the elect, to be with you and to see your glory, I want that too. So we love you and I want to serve you that way. Which one? Does it matter? They’re both biblical themes. Let’s just say the love that Christ displayed and then the love He pours out in our hearts for him, both of those things compel us and constrain us and move us to evangelize.
Christ’s Death Puts Compels Us to Live for Others (vs. 15)
Eighth, Christ’s death compels us to live for others, frees us from selfishness. Verse 15, “For Christ’s love compels us because we’re convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” Verse 15, and he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. Now, I talked about this when I preached that single verse sermon on Galatians 2:20. I don’t know if you remember that. But in Galatians 2:20 it says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” What’s the next part? “I no longer live.” And I talked about that for a while. I no longer live, I don’t have an ambition for my own life anymore; an independent ambition, Paul is saying. I just live for this one thing: I live to please Christ. I live to serve him and to serve others. I don’t have a selfish ambition anymore, that’s what he’s saying there.
So all of us are so selfish. That’s the nature of the flesh. What’s in it for me? Every day, deciding what would I like to do today? You know, the idol of choice in the West, we have so much wealth and so much free time and so many options, and so we are so tempted towards selfishness, but this verse is a heat-seeking missile towards selfishness, blowing it up. 2 Corinthians 5:15, it says, “And he died for all that those who live, that’s us, should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised up.” Again, we should no longer live for ourselves, but for the lost, for suffering sinners who are harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. We should no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and was raised again. We should no longer live for ourself for selfish reasons, but so that we might evangelize. Basically, the excuses I make for not evangelizing, they’re ultimately, all of them selfish. It costs me something, it hurts me, it’s difficult for me. It’s just selfish reasons. I don’t want to be selfish. I really want to live like Paul did, free from selfishness.
Seeing People from an Eternal Perspective (vs. 16)
Ninth, seeing people from an eternal perspective. We evangelize because we now see people differently. Verse 16, “So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view or a fleshly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ this way, we do so no longer.” So we’re trained by all of this doctrine, all of these truths to just see people differently. We walk by faith, not by sight. And so we see people by faith and not by sight. We don’t see people the way that non-Christians see them. The very people that we live with, and work with, and shopped with, and watch games with, and travel with, those people are eternal beings. Every one of them is created in the image of God, every one of them, a sinner who has transgressed the laws of God, and every one of them will spend eternity either in heaven or hell, all of them.
In our natural way, we tend to look at people from a self-advantage point of view, What can this person do to further my agenda or hinder my agenda? And if they can further my agenda then they’re good and I’ll use them, but if they hinder, then they’re my enemy and I’ll oppose them and be mean to them. But that’s the way a natural person sees others, we don’t see people that way anymore, we’ve been liberated, we don’t see… We don’t regard people from a worldly point of view. We see people as eternally significant creations who someday are going to get separated from the others and will either be with the sheep or the goats. That’s how it’s going to be for them. We see them from that point of view, and therefore we’re going to evangelize. We once looked at Jesus from a carnal point of view, but we don’t look at him that way any longer.
Because We’re New Creations (Like Jesus) (vs. 17)
Tenthly, we evangelize because like Jesus, we are new creations. You, if you’re a Christian, you have been changed. You’re a different person. You’ve been transformed. 2 Corinthians 5:17 was the first Scripture verse I ever memorized with the Topical Memory System and the Navigators packet. I had been a Christian for two weeks, someone gave me that little card and 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation, the old is gone, behold, everything has become new.” And they wanted you to know right away that you’ve changed, everything is changing in your life, everything’s different now, and so I thought it’s an interesting verse to choose. Of all the verses in the Bible it’s the first one to have a new convert memorized, but it’s been with me ever since, and I just think about that. We are new.
Now, here’s the thing, Paul already called our bodies tents that are wasting away, that’s not new creation stuff. As a matter of fact, there is no new creation stuff in this world. Anything you can touch or see, whatever, that’s all old creation stuff and it’s going to get burned up, all of it’s going away. All of it. But if you’re a Christian, you have been born again and your soul, your true self is a new creation entity. It will survive the rest of your lives through judgment day and on into eternity, you are a new creation. And therefore you’re free from all of the burdens and the pressures and all of the wickedness of this world, you’re free from that, and you can fly above all of those depressing motivators, like a 747 pilot, breaking through the cloud cover, spending the whole day in bright sunshine when everyone else has cold drizzle, you’re a new creation, you can spend your life like that.
I love that story from Howard Hendricks, he saw a new believer and the person was just so gloomy and negative. You know your personality? I know. I don’t know. How are you doing? I’m doing fine under the circumstances, and he said, “What are you doing under there? Get up above the circumstances. Christians don’t live under the circumstances. Break through the cloud cover. Get up above where it’s bright sunshine all the time. You’re a new creation, not under the same things others are.” And so we just think about life differently. People need to see that kind of hope glowing inside you so they can ask you to give a reason for it.
Because We’re Reconciled to God (vs. 18)
Number 11, we evangelize because we ourselves have been reconciled to God. Verse 18, “All this is from God…” What a great statement that is, I could spend a whole sermon on just that. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry”. We’ll talk about that. But we are reconciled to God. Now, what is reconciliation? Well, it’s all about relationship. If you have two individuals and they’re at odds with each other, they’re acting like enemies, they’re in conflict, and then some things happened so that their relationship is healed, and they act like friends and they speak kindly and lovingly to one another, and they have kind thoughts in their hearts toward one another, and their love is restored for one other, that’s reconciliation. That’s what it is. And so it is with us. We were God’s enemies.
In Colossians 1:21-22, it says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation.” So now we are no longer God’s enemies, but we are now more than just his friends, we are adopted into his family. We are sons and daughters of the Living God, we have been reconciled. Okay, how is that a motivator for evangelism? Because we want others to also have that same experience. We know how sweet it is to know that our sins are forgiven, how sweet it is to know that God is no longer angry judge, but now loving Father. How sweet that is, and we want others to experience that same thing.
Because God Has Given Us the Ministry of Reconciliation (vs. 18-19)
And so 12, we evangelize because God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Verse 18-19, “All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” This is an incredible idea. This is the one, this concept has just captivated me, the idea that God has entrusted this ministry of reconciliation to us and is in us now by the Spirit doing that work. That’s awesome. So God sees the world and outside of Christ there his enemies, and he has entrusted to the gospel message of Christ, incarnate by the Holy Spirit, living a sinless life, dying on the cross, and atoning death, raised from the dead on the third day. That message of the gospel, that repentance and faith in him, all forgiveness of sins comes through repentance and faith in him.
Romans 1:16 says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation.” What Paul would say here, power of God for reconciliation, all of that, God’s like handed the keys over to us. That’s awesome. Now, he is sovereign over all, that he controls it all. But he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. So we have this call to evangelism and missions, the external journey.
Because God Has the Whole World in View (vs. 19)
Thirteenth, we evangelize because God has the whole world in view. Verse 19, “…that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ…” It’s got to keep moving out, this is an eternal journey, an infinite journey. We’re just going to keep going. There’s always going to be more work to do until Jesus comes back. And so we care about missions, we care about others, and we care about evangelism for the same reason. This isn’t a local salvation, this isn’t just for you or just for us in this club, a small exclusive club, but there’s a pressure, a drive to move out even to the ends of the earth with this message.
Because Forgiveness of Sins for Others Awaits Our Efforts (vs. 19)
Fourteenth, we evangelize because forgiveness of sins for others awaits our efforts. Look at verse 19 again, “…that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their sins against them.” I mean, how guilty do non-Christians feel? How does their conscience assault them? How they are filled with regrets? How they are aware, at least to some degree, of the bondage and the chains that hold them back? They know that they’re miserable in sin, maybe not like they should, and that we get to come and say that God in Christ is willing to forgive all their adulteries and all their fornication, and all their lies, and all their idolatries, and all their selfishness and irritability, and all the times they’ve shown anger, and all the bad words they’ve spoken. He’s able to take all of it and cover it in the blood of Jesus. He’s willing to take all of their sins and throw them in the depths of the sea. He is willing to move them as far away from him as the east is from the west, and that’s awesome. We get to evangelize and be there at that moment when they receive the gift of forgiveness of sins.
Because We Are Christ’s Ambassadors (vs. 20)
Fifteenth, we evangelize because we are Christ’s ambassadors. Verse 20, we evangelize because we have an official position in the kingdom here, we’re ambassadors, we’re officially credited ambassadors to this world in the coming kingdom of Christ. We represent the coming King, and we have the right to proclaim a message of forgiveness in his name. We have authority, you realize? As ambassadors, we have the authority to command people to repent. You realize that? Think about that. In Acts 17:30, Paul said in Athens, “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” The more you meditate on that, the more courage you get in evangelism. What do you have to fear? You are out there as a representative of the King, and the King is graciously offering rebels a chance to lay down their weapons of rebellion and with amnesty be brought back into the kingdom with complete forgiveness.
We get to say that, but we are commanding them to lay down their weapons of rebellion, we’re commanding them to repent. And we have the authority to announce to them whether their sins are forgiven or not. Isn’t that incredible? We actually get to tell them that their sins are forgiven or not. In John 20:23, he says, “If you forgive anyone their sins, they’re forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they’re not forgiven.” We don’t do the ultimate forgiving, we’re just ambassadors, we’re giving the message. And if you listen to my gospel and you don’t believe it, you’re still in your sins. And we have to tell people that, but if they listen and they repent and believe, we can tell them that their sins are forgiven, and that’s why we evangelize.
Because God is Pleading With People Through Us (vs. 20)
Sixteenth, we evangelize because God through his Spirit is inside us, pleading with people, “…Be reconciled to God.” I have felt this, this burning desire that a total stranger become a Christian. I felt it, I was on an airplane and I had a great conversation with this guy, he was very interested, asked lots of questions, and at the end of that time, about an hour… Look, I only do hours with people who want it, I don’t force it on people, alright? But this guy was an interesting conversation, he was asking, bringing up all kinds of objections, we were having a great time, we were in our final approach, I knew we were just about done and he said, “Why do you care so much?” ‘Cause he could tell I wasn’t being inappropriate, but I was into it, alright? And he could say, “Why do you care?” I said, “This may seem strange to you, ’cause I’ve never met you, and in a few minutes, I’ll probably never see you again, but I really want you to be with me in heaven. I really would like to sit down with you at that banqueting table and look at the Savior and just know your sins are forgiven. I want to celebrate with you forever. I really want that.”
And I know the reason why is that because God was in me pleading with this guy to be reconciled to God. And that’s a sweet thing. It’s powerful. Now, I have a lot of other verses, I don’t have time for here, but God wants us to feel what it feels like for him to be God and be rejected, to “stand all day long and hold out your hands to a disobedient, obstinate people,” Romans 10. To “have the insults that have fallen on him, fall on us,” Romans 15. To have a stand outside the city gate and bear the reproach he bore, he wants that, but he also positively wants us to enjoy conversions and salvations like he does, as though God himself were making his appeal.
Because of the Perfection of Christ’s Atonement (vs. 21)
And then finally, because of the perfection of the gospel. Because of the perfection of the gospel. Verse 21, we evangelize because we get to preach this kind of message: “God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” That’s the centerpiece, the exchange. Our sins lifted from us and laid on Jesus, and he die. His righteousness given to us like a perfect beautiful robe and we stand in it forever. Alright, 17 motivators.
Developing a Culture of Evangelism
The Elders Want to BUILD on this month… not that it would just float away
One last thing I want to say to you and then I’ll be done, we’re going to have some folks come up here. We yearn as elders to see a culture of evangelism develop here. We don’t just want five or six people as a result of this month-long emphasis, five or six people to be converted and get baptized. Hey, look, we’d take the five or six people, we’d be thrilled about that. We’re excited about that, but that we want more than that.
Many State the Goal in this Language: a “Culture of Evangelism”
We want a whole culture of evangelism. What does that mean? It means that evangelism just kind of permeates the atmosphere of everything we do, it permeates the atmosphere of this ministry, that we’re thinking about it all the time, we are learning all the time how to be better evangelists. We are reading books on it, we’re discussing it, it’s involved in the sermons.
“We want a whole culture of evangelism. What does that mean? It means that evangelism just kind of permeates the atmosphere of everything we do.”
Now, it doesn’t mean that it’ll be all I preach on, it doesn’t mean that. I believe we must keep the two journeys side by side, I want to keep feeding the flock to grow up to full maturity so I’m going to preach verse by verse expositional sermons, but every week, as I’ve been doing for years, I’m going to break off and make the gospel clear to people who need to come to faith in Christ, I’m going to do that.
Applications & Closing Remarks
But meanwhile, we’re going to increase our contact with the gospel in terms of evangelism, in terms of BFL training, home fellowship. I think it’d be great if every home fellowship people asked, “Who are you having a gospel conversation? Who did you have a gospel conversation with this week? What’s the person’s name? How can we pray?” “Well, I didn’t have one this week.” “Okay, how can we pray for you that you would have one this upcoming week” Say, Well, there’s some pressure there. Mm-hmm. Yeah, positive peer pressure, you know? We desire to be an example to others, examples create pressure and others to do the same thing. We want to have that pressure.
And so, pleasant… Never guilt. Guilt is not a good motivator. But we say, “How can I pray for you?” It’s like, “Honestly, I just am too afraid to open my mouth.” Okay, can I pray that God will give you some boldness just to have a friendly conversation this week? Let’s start there. Not even evangelistic, but just that you reached out and had a conversation. Culture evangelism, that we’re continually praying for this person at the convenience store, this mother in the playgroup that we’re with together, this co-worker that I work with, that we’re talking about these things all the time. Now, I’m going to pray, and in a minute, Ryan’s going to come up here and some people who are involved in outreaching ministries at FBC are going to come and talk about their ministries, and our desire is, if you want to piggyback on existing work that people have already done in which they are regularly meeting lost people, and you want to get part of that, that’s a great way to grow in evangelism, and they’re going to tell you different ways you can do it. Let’s close in prayer.
Father, we thank you for the things that we’ve learned today. We thank you for the Word of God, and we ask, O Lord, that you would please help us to be filled with the Spirit and to be joyful, and to be effective and powerful in evangelism, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
