Living Out Evangelism with Boldness and Love | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning into our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. Well, good morning, Inglewood.

I've asked that the live feed continue as we enter into just a

moment of prayer. And there's a reason why I

wanted to actually stay on this time.

I want us to pray for some of our friends who are overseas.

They have not received positive news as of our latest updates

and I've been messaging with them this morning.

And so we want to continue to pray that God will will set some

of our friends free. And in the meantime, the gospel

is still being spread where they are, which we're thankful for

that. But the other thing is yesterday

was one of our friends birthdays.

And so without saying any names or places or anything like that,

when I count to 3, they're actually watching right now,

some of them. And I want you to say happy

birthday. We love you.

How about that on three? You ready everybody?

You ready, 123 And I know that they hear you and they feel you.

And we're going to continue to pray.

Also, please know that we've done all we can to contact a

help on various levels to try to reach out to remedy the

situation. And we pray that help is in

motion and on the way. And if that level doesn't work,

we'll go to DEFCON 4. But anyway, so for now, we're

praying that God will continue to work.

In the meantime, it's been fascinating to see how the

gospel has been spread. Second thing I want to pray for

is right now as we are speaking, the launch service at First Love

Fellowship and our church plant in Tarboro is taking place.

And so some folks have worked tirelessly and invited thousands

of people. I think some of our our members

are even over there this morning, but but we want to pray

for them as Jonathan shares the word of God and that church

plant kicks off officially right now.

And then the third thing that we want to lift up is I, I know

that some of our church members have been affected by some of

the recent developments in our city government crisis.

And so out of the 100 or so employees who have been let go,

some of them are actually folks here.

And so we want you to know that we support you and we know this

is a difficult time, perhaps a confusing time.

And so we want to be the church family to you, and we are going

to pray for you and others as well.

So let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we are very thankful that nothing that takes place in

our world catches you off guard, that in your perfect sovereignty

and knowledge, Lord, you knew long ago what we would be

praying about right now. Father, we pray for our friends

overseas. Lord, I pray that that

miraculously like we've seen in your word, that that freedom

would be granted, that justice would be served, that in a way

that would allow them to go and to be with their family.

Father, that you would continue to allow your gospel to spread

even after their physical presence is set free.

Lord, now that that seeds been planted, Father, we pray that

that crop will continue without them and pray, Father, that they

will be able to to to be out and, and return home.

Father, I pray for the family, the family that is there, the

family that is here that you would comfort them and encourage

them. Know that we are praying every

time we meet for them and about them and, and many of us are

praying in between constantly for them.

And so, Father, I just pray that you'll work powerfully.

Father, we rejoice also in what you're doing in Tarboro right

now. And Father, I thank you for so

many who've worked so hard for this moment.

I pray, Father, that the thousands that were invited,

that they will come, that you will bring those who need to

hear your word. That, Father, someone will be

saved in Tarboro this morning. And the others will want to be a

part of a new church, starting to help it, to help it grow, to

help it build. And Father, I also want to lift

up those who are hurting, confused, bewildered,

frustrated, who've lost their jobs.

That Father, You would give wisdom to our leadership here,

that there would be honesty and integrity about that leadership

as well. If there is anything that needs

to be brought to light, that you would do so.

I don't know, Father, I just pray for that.

But I pray mainly for the folks who've lost their jobs, Lord,

that you would help them to find employment.

Lord, You would support them. Maybe for some, Father, they'll

look back and say this was a moment when God actually opened

a new door for me in my life. And so, Father, I pray that you

would help them to see that very clearly from you.

So, Lord, we lift up our city. We lift up our leaders.

We thank you for them. Pray, Father, that you'll just

guide them and help us, Father, to find the best ways to pray

for them and support them. So, Lord, bless us.

Bless our time now that we might learn from your word and that

you might bless us from it. The Lord, we would be challenged

to be stronger disciples because of it.

Lord, thank you in Christ's name, Amen.

I do want to encourage you to be here Wednesday night.

This Wednesday night will be a little different.

This is our fall adult prayer service.

We'll meet in here. Hundreds of us will be in here

Wednesday night and we're going to pray.

One of the things that we want to do with these 7 essentials of

discipleship that we're talking about is we actually want to

continue to teach and to talk about these things.

So this Wednesday night, we'll actually be reinforcing the

abiding and prayer with dependence and anticipation time

as we meet together here at 6:30.

And I can't encourage you enough about next Sunday night, as

you've already seen in the video and Pastor Jordan has shared

with you. So I look forward to seeing you

there. So you know, we're from the

Ozarks, which basically means that Teresa and I are

hillbillies. That's what we really are.

We're from we're from a pretty small place.

And so growing up, it was a big deal to go to the big city.

The big city for us, the big, big city was Tulsa.

I mean, that was like New York, the bigger city or a smaller big

city was Muskogee, OK, which that was even a special trip.

And so, you know, you got to go to the big city and buy things

every now and then at stores that you just didn't have back

in the small town. And so one of these days, one of

these trips, I, I bought something at a fancy store.

I was really proud of, excited about it, brought it home and a

friend and friend was that what is that?

And what was a thermos bottle? It was a thermos bottle.

And, and, and, and I told him, I said, the guy at the store said

that this thing, it's supposed to keep cold things cold and hot

things hot. I was pretty amazed at that.

I don't understand how that worked.

And so the guy says, really it says that sounds incredible what

you got in it. And I said 3 coffees and a

popsicle. So hot, cold, tough to be both

at the same time, isn't it? But lukewarm, lukewarm won't get

it. We want to be more like Jesus,

or I pray we do. And I pray we we genuinely, I

pray we genuinely want to join him on his mission to bring him

glory and to be used by him to redeem the nation's.

I look forward to seeing what God's going to do with us in

2026, but I also look forward to seeing what he's going to do

today and tomorrow. And I pray that Inglewood exists

to make disciples who love him and love others and will help

fulfill that mission. So once again, I, I invite you

to come live the church's vision with us to, to learn about the

seven essentials of discipleship.

We're just laying very basic foundation blocks right now for

what we're going to be teaching much more in depth about later.

the US Census actually came out with some research not too long

ago and they were studying the 15 largest metropolitan areas of

the United States of America and they found that the least

religious metropolitan area out of those 15 was Seattle, WA.

It may not be a surprise to some of you and and it's interesting

because it barely beat out San Francisco and so the the state

of Washington as a whole is nearly as non religious as

Seattle. So there's a state.

It was there. In fact, the Seattle Times wrote

that Washington ranked as the 5th least religious state.

Maine and Vermont were at the top, both at around 69%,

followed by Oregon 65% and New Hampshire 64%.

Mississippi had the lowest share of non religious people with

only 30%. But it's interesting because

Seattle ranked up there is that this this metropolitan area was

right there at that 64 percentile mark.

And I always thought that was interesting because you've heard

me share with you and I've done this across the state of North

Carolina in multiple places that in our assessment study of our

community around us, that there's 74% of people who live

within 10 miles or where you're seated right now who are not

attending any church or religious service.

So you're actually on a mission field right now with a higher

percentage of non religious people than Seattle, WA.

That was a pause for you to let that sink in.

So I need you to understand that that that I believe with all my

heart that some church in the Rocky Mount area is going to get

that they're going to be burdened by that and they're

going to be faithful and to grow because of that.

And they're going to bring God glory and he's going to use them

to heal broken lives and restore people's lives.

And I just pray that we are that church.

That's what I've been praying that Inglewood would be that

church. I need you to understand that

church closer closures, churches closing are outpacing church

planting now. And that's a switch over from

over the last decade. So more churches are closing now

than are being planted. And so if something that isn't

done, something even worse is going to happen, more than 80%

of the churches in America are plateaued, are declining.

And most churches who are growing are only growing because

80% of the churches are declining.

I don't know if you just caught what I said.

The reason most churches grow is because they're getting members

from other churches that are declining.

So in other words, the size of the total flock isn't

increasing. In fact, churches that grow

because of evangelism are only three to 4%.

Of all the churches in the United States of America, only

three to 4% grow by evangelism. So when you see somebody getting

baptized up here, when you hear about somebody trusting in

Jesus, I need you to not ever take that for granted.

That puts us in a three to four percentile to where most

churches are just not seeing that.

So don't ever take it for granted.

And this is such an important part of our future that that I

will begin teaching personal evangelism training here on

midweek on Wednesday, October 29th.

Now, those of you who've been coming, hundreds of people been

coming for the doctrinal studies and you all love it.

But I just want you to know I've been setting you up for this

because the whole reason I want you to know what you believe and

why you believe in how you can share it with somebody is so

that you will share it with somebody.

And, and so I need you here. Don't decline.

We know who you are. We have photographic evidence.

I don't even know who I am half the time, so don't worry.

But in all seriousness, there's going to be a step by step

natural relational way of sharing the gospel.

This is not about memorizing some 32 point gospel outline.

I'm not going to give you some new gizmo or gadget to try to

share the gospel with. This is about how do I actually,

honestly with integrity, develop a relationship with my lost

friend or family member who is lost?

And how do I help them step by step in a very relational,

natural, enter to a dialogue with me about who I love, Jesus

Christ and help them to understand this thing called the

gospel. And so I need you here.

You need to be here. I'm too scared.

I don't want to do that. I've never done that in my life.

I'm too afraid to do that. I don't even care about doing

that. Well, hush and be here.

You'll learn. So how can I join inviting

people to my connect group or inviting them to church along

with inviting them to Jesus? And what an opportunity we have.

I don't know if you realize this or not, but if you go to, if you

go to our, our primary cultural indicator and, and we all share

it and it's our primary cultural indicator, Walmart, you'll know

that Christmas is just around the corner already.

If you go to, if you go to the Walmarts right now, as we call

it back home, we're going up to the Walmarts.

You know, the Christmas trees are out, the decorations are

out. And it's really interesting

because this this evangelism training is going to lead us

right into this season. And this is still a season where

people talk about Jesus. So it's an incredible

opportunity that God's given us to share with people.

So we're going to have conversations with them about

about our Lord. So come be trained with

practical and specific guidance in time to share with him about

other with others. So come and be here and then

continue to invite them here because I promise if you bring

them here, they'll hear the gospel.

Because part of what we have to acknowledge as disciples, as

followers of Christ, we're empowered by the Holy Spirit to

do this. This is part of our purpose.

This is part of our fulfillment of who God wants us to be.

If you remember a long time ago in the book of Acts chapter one,

verse 8, you know this verse, it says, but you will receive power

when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my

witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria to the end of

the earth. So a disciple of Jesus, a real 1

is living out evangelistically with boldness and love.

And notice how that's worded. It's worded this way very

intentionally. This isn't just something you

do. I'm, I'm not going to just try

to teach you how to do evangelism.

I've said this 1000 times. I want to teach you to be

evangelistic. Those are not the same thing. 1

is a state of being 24/7. This is just who I am.

If you know me, you're going to hear about my relationship with

Jesus. It's a true characteristic of a

disciple. So this morning I want us to go

to a passage of 1000 sermons in Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

Now you've probably heard some of these verses many times, but

I'm not sure anybody has ever taken you through the whole.

And that's what you need to see. You need to see the bigger

context here and not just the few verses that you often quote.

Even some of you may quote them in gospel presentations.

So it's easy to pick out a verse or two, but let's examine the

whole context in the passage here, Paul is writing to a

church he did not plant. That's important.

He didn't plant the church at Rome, but he still loved the

church at Rome, believed in the church at Rome.

And so we have this great book of theology.

I'm, I'm reading Romans in my personal quiet time right now.

And, and it's interesting to see it again.

And, and this is a great book of theology, but it's also theology

applied. And often times I know scholars

who like to study the theology part, they don't necessarily pay

enough attention to the application part.

And so we need to do that. So being, knowing and doing are

all parts of holistic discipleship.

And we're going to continue to teach those parts as we expand

our teaching and application of the seven essentials in the

months ahead. This Wednesday night's a prime

example of this where we we're going to expand abiding and

prayer. Next month, next Sunday, I'm

going to be preaching about missions.

Sunday night, missions night, the month of November, missions

month, we're going to be expanding about how do we

participate in missions. I'm going to have some special

guests here. So guess what, You're not even

going to have to listen to me for a couple of weeks out of

November. It'll be a great time.

So we're just getting started laying the foundation.

So Paul was teaching them how true salvation needed to work

and it had to take place by grace.

But that wasn't the end of his lessons.

So he also shares with them the incredible truth that we need to

share this salvation of grace with the world around us.

So how in the world do we do that?

Romans 10/1 starts us and he says, brothers, my heart's

desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

So the very first point, very simply, there's nothing

complicated about today. I wanted to be practical for you

is we need to pray passionately for we need to pray passionately

for the lost to be saved. So here's Paul, the teacher of

sovereign election back in Chapter 9.

Chapter 9 gets pretty deep and here's this, this teacher of

sovereign election now testifying that his prayer and

that his burden or his passion to God was that Israel might be

saved. Even though he's known as an

apostle to the Gentiles, He never forgot his own people and

he cared about his own people. And so he still believed praying

for the salvation of his own countrymen was part of his

responsibility. And, and this is something that

effective evangelistic churches do.

I've actually had the privilege of pastoring 2 churches.

That's actually a statistical category.

I've actually had the privilege of pastoring 2 churches that

would be recognized as the most effective evangelistic churches

in North America. And that and that represents the

top 3% of Southern Baptist churches, top 1% of evangelical

churches to where we've reached a lot of people.

And so that privilege of seeing that happen, of watching God do

that, we prayed for lost people. We prayed about their lostness.

So welcome to reach, welcome to what your Connect groups are

starting right now. And it's going to be developed

even further. And be here Wednesday night as

we pray for family, we pray for friends, we pray for lostness.

So Paul cared passionately about his people.

Don't miss this. This was his heart's desire.

The word, the idea is passion. The word idea here is burden.

His heart's overwhelmed that he pray for the salvation of the

Hebrews. He's praying about their

spiritual condition. And it just forces me and I've

asked churches all around the world this question, how

burdened are you for the salvation of your people?

How passionate are you about whether or not the people of the

Rocky Mount area are saved or not?

Do you think about it? Do you care about it?

Is it a part of your heart's desire?

Is it actually something you're involved with?

Because if we're to make Jesus known, we must be passionate,

must be part of our hearts desire that that salvation is

for those around us. So look at verse 2.

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but

not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the

righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did

not submit to God's righteousness.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone

who believes so. So Paul acknowledged that even

though the Hebrews might have been religious, that religious

doesn't get it done there. There are people who are in

church every single Sunday and they're lost.

There are people who are church members and they're lost.

I don't have to guess about that.

I've, I've talked to too many of them over the years.

I don't know how many times we've heard the baptismal

testimony right up there where somebody stood right up here and

read it. I grew up in the chair.

I thought I was a Christian. I believed I was.

And then I realized it wasn't. I mean, we've heard it over and

over and over and over again. Being religious, going to

church, going through the ritual doesn't save you.

They would not submit to God and they needed the gospel, Paul

said. And so we're surrounded by

people likely convinced. I mean, they're in their own

minds right now. They're convinced of their own

truths and that they don't need the real truth of God.

They live off opinions. They live off conjecture, often

the ones they read online staking their eternities upon

falsehoods of ignorant lostness. And then you all know that there

are others that already believe they are Christians.

I mean, we've heard this testimony, this would be part of

Teresa's testimony. If somebody had asked Teresa

before she was saved if she was a Christian or not, she said, of

course I am. She wasn't.

I mean, people all around us who would call themselves that, but

they really have never had a personal experience with Jesus

Christ as their Savior and Lord. We hear that in these

testimonies all the time. We need to pray for him

Inglewood. We need to pray for him by name,

by street, by business, by class, and we need to come and

learn how to share with him at midweek and and with one another

in our connect groups. Because Paul continues in this

passage, he's not anywhere near done.

He says, look, there are two kinds of righteousness we need

to talk about beginning in verse 5.

He says for Moses writes about the righteousness that's based

on the law that the person who does this command does the

commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on

faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into

heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into

the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead.

But what does it say? The word is near you in your

mouth and in your heart. That is the Word of Faith that

we are proclaimed. Now what did he just say?

What? What does all that mean?

Well, the second thing we need to understand is that we need to

understand the high expectation to live evangelistically.

See, one form of righteousness had its origin in the law, but

nobody could fulfil all the law. That became the problem.

It becomes so twisted, so perverted in the Jewish

religion, it'd become more of a weight and albatross around

their necks that than a source of real salvation and and some

other real lasting solution had to be presented.

There's a real problem. And so righteousness based on

faith was and is the answer. It always was.

In fact, before the 1st service this morning, I was asked out

there in the larynx, what do you call that place?

The narthex, the lobby, that big room out there, the entryway.

I was asked by somebody, how were people saved in the Old

Testament? Basically, great question.

It was a good conversation. And when you read Hebrews 11,

you'll, you'll see that Abraham was saved by faith.

So, so it's always been this way.

It was just the way it worked became different when Christ

came. So and what Paul is saying is

this and this, this may seem confusing in verses 6:00 and

7:00, but we don't have to storm heaven or hell and try to force

God's hand to save us. We couldn't even if we tried.

So we can't save ourselves. So we require somebody else to

save us. And Christ has already done

that. So Christ has already come.

Christ has already died on our behalf.

Christ has already risen from the dead.

So we don't treat. We don't have to try to make

that happen again. It's already taken place.

So we don't have to create or force our own salvation.

We need to have faith in what Christ has already done and then

we need to proclaim it. We proclaim as gospel of grace

and faith. Verse 8 says at the very last

word that this, this is the Word of Faith that we proclaim.

And the way that word proclaim is written.

This doesn't get you off the hook.

This makes it worse. The hook gets deeper because

it's present, continuous. And so in other words, if we

proclaim and we continuously proclaim, we never stop

proclaiming. You can't shut us up from

proclaiming. And I think of my, I think of

our friends right now who in a very dark and difficult place

for proclaiming the gospel. And we already have record of

people being saved in that place.

And what we don't know is what God's going to do with those

people already saved and how that's going to spread other

people being saved. And so they're over there in, in

bondage in a dark place, sharing the gospel.

And we sit here in Rocky Mount, NC in freedom.

You're not going to be punished for being a Christian in North

Carolina yet that if things continue, if the church doesn't

do its job, if we give up. So proclamation of the gospel

should be this habitual act of the believer.

This is an essential to our lives.

Something you live with boldness and love.

It's a state of being. It's 24/7.

You know, I, I, especially in seminary life, I'd have people

that I'm really not into evangelism.

I like studying the word, like teaching the word.

I really like digging deep into the word.

Well, Amen to you. But that's the most immature

discipleship I've ever heard described.

You big baby. True discipleship is a cycle.

True discipleship has fruit. True discipleship leads to other

disciples. And you can sit there all day

long and teach me, talk to me about how deep a teacher you

are. But if you're not sharing what

you're learning and you're studying with anybody else,

you're missing the whole point. Studies, in fact, indicate that

as few as 2 to 5%, and I argue is closer to the two of active

church members in the United States of America actually

proclaim their faith to others. Only two to 5% of active church

members. That means that 95 to 98% do

not. And we wonder why the churches

are closing every week. We wonder why in the next few

years, 1/3 of all the churches are, excuse me, 1/4 of all the

churches in the United States of America will be closed.

It's coming. And if we don't get it, some

church has to get it. See.

So, believers, you don't have the right to remain silent and

you must not with the 74% around you.

I mean, it's thousands of lost souls right here, right here.

We don't, we don't have to go to some weird place.

You saw a video. Listen, I'm going to bring you.

You can't. I'm telling you on that at 26,

you're not going to believe it. I'm going to, I'm going to help

us go to places you've never been before.

Inglewood. We're going to go see some of my

friends overseas in 26 in some interest, interesting places,

OK? And I'm going to get you to go.

If I have to go with you, I'll get you to go.

You need to be here. It's going to be a fun night.

We're going to review everything.

As Jordan said, it's going to be a celebration.

It's going to be just a fun night.

You come that night. But listen, there are thousands

of them right now and more and more, 50,000 of them are coming.

What are we going to do? If you think that you're alive

today and in this place at this exact moment just for you, you

are missing the mission of God. You are here at this exact

moment at this exact place at for an exact reason.

So pray for and share with them and let's bring God great glory

and let's watch him pack the House of people.

So Paul constantly proclaimed the gospel and that's an

expectation for us as well. It's a part of who we are and

here's why. Look at verse 9.

These are verses you might know. These are verses that some of

you would use, some of you have memorized because if you confess

with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart

that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

I mean, it's the gospel for with the heart 1 believes and is

justified, and with the mouth 1 confesses and is saved.

So the third thing we need to look at, and there's only 16

points to the sermon. So you get, the third thing we

need to recognize is that we need to know what and to whom to

share. There's a gospel message that

needs to be shared. There's truth here that must be,

must be told. So the gospel is both a

recognition of these truths and it's also a declaration of these

truths. So it's not enough just to to

hear them. They have to change you.

So confessing Jesus as Lord. Curious.

This is that word in the Greek Old Testament and the Sept.

It's used 6000 times or more to translate the Hebrew name for

God, Yahweh. So you've got to understand the

power of what is being said here.

So we are to confess, we are to agree with, we are to say the

same thing as that's what that word means, that Jesus is Lord.

And that means we're proclaiming, we are declaring

that Jesus is God and has absolute authority over my life.

In fact, a more literal translation of the Greek here

would say, if on your lips is the confession, Jesus is Lord.

This is who I am, This is my identity.

This is what has happened to me. In fact, listen to Jesus.

He shared about this in Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

He said, So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I

also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven.

But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my

Father who is in heaven. So confessing Christ is not

simply some private matter. You know, it's really funny.

Let me tell you. A lie of Satan religious is

private. That's a lie.

That's a lie. You know, that's all the people

say. Well, that's a very personal and

private thing. Well, yeah, I understand you

need to personally accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,

but there's absolutely nothing in biblical Christianity that

then says you're not supposed to tell people about that.

It's the opposite. This is not a private matter.

This is a public matter. This is public identification.

This is public declaration. You can argue with me if you

want to, but go to the Bible and you're going to be wrong.

I don't make this stuff up. So listen, we've celebrated

multiple people being baptized. We've got more on the way.

I know of more on the way. And maybe you need to join them.

Maybe you need to contact the pastor of church office and say

I need to be baptized, I know I need to be baptized.

And then invite your lost friends and family and, and have

them sit here and you share your testimony through baptism and

I'll share the gospel with them. I remember one time, Teresa will

tell you right over here in the church one time had, and you

remember the atheist Dave, atheist Dave sitting right over

here because he had to come, didn't have a choice because his

daughter and his dad were getting baptized together.

So had grandpa and granddaughter getting baptized together, and

two weeks later David's getting baptized.

Now here's what you do. You bring your friends and

neighbors. We'll have a whole splash zone

up here and you get them all lined up in here every week, and

then some of them will get saved.

Then they get baptized. They'll bring more people to the

splash zone, and we'll just keep rotating the splash zone.

But you got to bring them, you got to tell them, and you've got

to step forward. See, we got to believe first in

our heart. So it is internal, it's

personal. This is not a superficial act.

This is interchange. This is reality, this is truth,

right? And, and to believe with one's

heart means to commit oneself at the deepest level.

And it's not just verbal, it's not just intellectual, it's,

it's staking your entire being upon this truth.

So it matters that we believe and it matters what we believe.

And so believing in the absolute authority and lordship of Jesus

Christ and his which resurrection is the very center

of our faith, because without the resurrection, there's no

hope. So we recognize this gospel that

the Father raised the Son to validate his claim over sin and

death and to authenticate who Jesus really is.

And then we're saved because we're justified by him.

We're made right we and he intercedes on our behalf, and

that internal change happens. Then we have to let it all out

and identify with Him publicly and tell the world so.

Notice how believing and confessing or proclaiming are

inseparable. You don't get to choose.

If you're a Christian and you never share your faith, you've

got to hear me say this to you. Your discipleship is incomplete.

Am I trying to put pressure on you?

Absolutely. Come be trained.

Let us help you take that step. I'm too shy.

Listen, I've had seminary students who've never showed the

gospel in their entire life, Masters level seminary students,

and they'll confess that to me. They're they're introverted,

they're shy. I don't know how to do this.

This scares me to death. I'm not talking about standing

on the street corner with a, with a loudspeaker gang.

I'm talking about how do I develop a relationship with my

friends. If you don't know how to have a

friend, we'll talk about that. The class I used to want to

teach at seminary was how to have a normal interpersonal

relationship without acting like a geek.

That's what I wanted to teach at the seminary.

So notice how believing and confessing go together.

This gospel of grace and faith is a message that we constantly

proclaim because of our discipleship.

Listen to verse 11 for the Scripture says everyone who

believes in him will not be put to shame.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all

who call on him. For everyone who calls on the

name of the Lord will be saved. So what's really cool about this

is that the righteousness that God imparts is open to

everybody. That's the other cool thing

about the gospel. It's not just for some people.

And you got to remember who Paul's talking to here.

He's a lot of the book of Romans is written to to Jewish

background believers, and so he's rocking writing to these

Jewish mindset sometimes who often thought they were the only

ones who ought to have something.

And so we see this idea that his free pardon is assured to

everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

Notice how many times there's an everyone or an all all have one

way of salvation because there's only one way to salvation.

You can only come to the Father except except through Jesus.

So there's no distinction. We also all have sinned.

We also all need to be saved. We also all must be saved.

And so that means that we must seek them all and we need to

welcome them all and share with them all.

So we don't simply stand in the world bearing witness to Christ

because we've been justified by him.

We actually stand in Christ and then we're bearing witness to

the world because of him. Abide in him, be in Christ, be

filled with His Spirit. Look at verse 13.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

How then will they call on Him and Him and whom they've not

believed? And how are they to believe in

Him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without

someone preaching? It gets pretty practical.

Here's this theology applied now point #4 there's only a couple

more. Really recognize the urgent

responsibility to share. Don't miss this, this powerful

passage right here. If you know what he's doing,

he's actually quoting Joel chapter 2.

Joel 2 · chapter mention

And in Joel chapter 2, everything that he's saying

Joel 2 · chapter mention

about Jesus was said about Yahweh.

So guess who Jesus is? He's God.

So one calls out of a sense of inadequacy, I can't.

God, you can, only you can. I'm inadequate.

I can't do this myself. And it literally means to invoke

Him as Lord. See, when we declare His

position and authority over us, we declare our allegiance to

Him, our recognition of the reality of who He really is.

It's our we're stating our complete dependency upon Him.

This is a life. Then we must proclaim him to

others so that they can see this urgent need.

This is desperate. You've got to call out and call

upon him. This is a life or death

conversation. You know, it's interesting.

I'm going to teach a series down the road called Heaven, Hell and

the Hereafter, or what happens the the 2nd that I die and we're

going to talk about the afterlife.

And it's always interesting to me.

People love to talk about heaven, but I'm not sure

everybody believes in hell anymore.

Across the US, the studies show that that far fewer people

believe in hell than believe in heaven.

Well, let me tell you something. Hell, it's real.

People are going to die. This is life or death.

There's an old story, It's a true story about an old chief, a

Fijian tree from Fiji, A Fijian tribal chief.

And he became a believer along with a lot of his people.

And an unbeliever came to him and mocked him and says, you're

a great chief. And it's really a pity that

you've been so foolish as to listen to these missionaries who

only want to get rich off of you.

And no, no one today believes in any more in that old book called

the Bible. Neither do men listen to that

old story about Jesus. People know better now.

And I'm sorry that you've been so foolish.

Well, the chief chief's eyes kind of flash.

He's an older man at that point. And he says, you see that big

stone over there? Yeah, well, on that stone we

used to smash the heads of our victims to death.

Do you see that oven over there he goes.

In that oven we used to roast their bodies for our great

feasts. If it had not been for those

good missionaries, if it had not been for that old book, and if

it not been for the great love of Jesus, which has changed us

from savages into God's children, you'd never leave this

spot. Thank God for the gospel,

otherwise you'd be dead right now.

Men and women are urged to call upon the Lord, urgently call

upon the Lord. Their eternal lives depended

upon it, but they must believe. They must believe.

And you've heard me talk about believe.

It's just a verb form of the noun for faith.

So they need to faith, they need the faith in Jesus.

It's more than knowledge, it's more than even understanding,

it's dependency, it's control. You got to give up control, it's

reliance, it's trust, it's submission.

So to call upon the Lord without faith is empty verse 9 again.

Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and

believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you

will be saved. For with the heart 1 believes

and is justified, and with the mouth 1 confesses and is saved.

The lost around us right now must faith in Christ.

But how are they going to do that unless we teach them what

that is? Over half the world's population

Right now, 59% of the world's total population has no access

to the gospel. Now, next week we're going to

start, we're going to launch our missions month.

We're going to start talking about how do we reach the whole

world. But right now, let's talk about

how we're going to reach our neighbor.

And, and, and here's the frustrating part.

When we talk about the world, it's billions of people and that

number is just increasing. It's not decreasing.

But here's what you've got to understand.

The same things happening in Rocky Mount.

There are more lost people today in the Rocky Mount era area than

there were yesterday. And tomorrow there'll be more

than today and it's going to continue to increase.

We've got to do something about this.

It's happening all across Nash County.

It's going to continue. And how can they believe if

nobody tells them? Karl Henry has a famous

sentence. He says this.

The gospel is only good if it gets there in time and we've got

to take it to him. So saving faith depends upon

knowledge. It depends upon hearing.

It depends upon understanding the word of God.

And don't assume this is a wrong assumption.

It's false. Don't assume that everybody you

know has heard. In fact, statistically, the

opposite is likely true. In the United States of America,

most lost people, by far most lost people have never, ever had

anybody share a gospel presentation to them in a

loving, personal way. So don't assume your next door

neighbors are Christian. Assume they're not and assume

they've never heard like you could share with them.

So let me state this as clearly as I can.

Let me let me muster of all my academia here, let me come up

with the fanciest words I can possibly muster.

Here's what I here's what I've got to say.

Those of us who know Christ in the gospel must communicate that

to those who don't. How about that?

That clear enough? Because they they need to hear

to believe. But how are they when almost

everybody in the church is silent?

Don't just call me to come visit your friend.

You go see your friend. I'll go with you if I can.

But listen, you need to understand that this is how

Teresa and I were both saved. You would not know us.

You may not care for me, but I know everybody likes her.

So if, if, if you like her, you need to understand you would

have never known her because we were saved.

Because individual regular church folks, not a pastor, not

a Deacon, not a Sunday school teacher, just regular old church

folks personally shared the gospel with each of us

separately. Now, we weren't a couple in

those days with years apart, different places, different

locate all kinds of stuff. But if it wasn't for those folks

to come to us and share the gospel with us, just regular

folks from different churches, I would have never heard a

preacher. I mean, I'm not kidding you.

The first time I would have heard a sermon, I'd been in the

casket and I couldn't hear hurt. I couldn't hear much, right?

I didn't go to church. So if it wasn't for individuals

who came to us, who cared, who were bold and loving and

burdened enough to come share the gospel with us, I'm thankful

for Brother Galbraith and brother Brother Dreadful Water.

We need to somebody and that's exactly what we need to learn

how to do. I'm reminded of an old story.

Hudson Taylor was a famous historic missionary to China.

If you don't know who Hudson Taylor is, and he had an elderly

Chinese man, this is a true story.

Elderly Chinese man come to him one time and he was sitting in a

in a in an inn. And the old man walks up to him

and says, are you a foreigner? He goes, yeah, I'm an

Englishman. He goes, are there are those

books in that bag? And he goes, yes, they are.

And he says, are you a teacher of foreign religion?

He goes, yeah, I teach the Jesus religion.

And the older Chinese man then said to Hudson Taylor that he'd

been a seeker for truth for many years, but he couldn't find a

religion that would take away the burden of his guilt.

And a few nights before, he'd had a vision that had come to

him in which a man dressed in white told him to go to Hang

Chao, and there he would find a foreigner sitting in the end

with a bag of books on the table in front of him.

And the Chinese man said they went to in, after, in, after,

in, after, in. And finally the last in he came

to. His last hope was this in.

And Taylor preached the gospel to him and gave him a Bible.

And two days later, he visited the man's home and found that he

destroyed all his idols and that he was rejoicing in Jesus Christ

as his Savior. Our world is in massive, urgent

need. There's a Hebrew word that

describes our world right now. It's a mess.

And I'm telling you it's a mess. And it's getting darker and

darker. And the church has to do its

job. We're partly responsible for

this, and so it must call, it must believe, it must hear.

But someone needs to share before it's too late.

They need a friend who cares enough to pray and to share.

Verse 15. And how are they to preach

unless they're sent as it is written?

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach?

The good news #5 is a question. Am I willing to share with a

lost person? Christianity begins with the

words follow me. It ends with the words go where

do I fit in? And and it says that we're to

preach this, to preach the good news.

That means to herald. We're we're royal, royal, royal

can't say the word royal heralds of the king and his Kingdom.

So we not only send people out, we're going to do that.

It's going to be our prayer. We're thankful for what's going

on in Tarboro right now. We're going to continue to send

people out to share, but we also got to send ourselves and go

that word send apostolo is the word we get apostle from and it

means to be sent out. And so we recognize it's that

that we're sent by a higher power with a certain message, a

certain mission provided by that authority and we're commanded to

be heralds. And this is one of the reasons

we end our service with John 2021 that says Jesus said to

them, peace be with you. And as the Father has sent me,

Even so I'm sending you. So how can we send out another

to show the gospel so they might hear, believe and call upon the

name of the Lord? Doctor Kevin Ezel, our former

pastor and a friend of mine who's president of North

American Mission Board, once said this.

He says, may we count our success not by how many we keep,

but by how many we send. Will we respond to the lostness

of our community? Will we respond to the high

discipleship expectations of our Lord?

I mean, what an honor to be saved, what an honor to be

called, what an honor to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, What

an what an honor to be filled, what an honor to be gifted.

So we certainly don't want to dishonor him with our silence.

If you don't know what to say, come on Wednesdays and I'll

teach you. You've been too afraid you'll be

here. We'll talk about that.

This task requires too much immediate attention in action.

Listen, I know folks who are introverted.

They're too scared to do this. Listen, we're going to help you

walk through that. We can't write it off.

We can't expect somebody else to do this.

We can't just pawn it off. We can't just ignore it.

People are dying in need. So you need to be here to be

trained. And we just need to see what

kind of dent God can put in the 74% by using Englewood Baptist

Church verse 16. But they have not all obeyed the

gospel. There's a sentence, Isaiah says,

Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us.

So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of

Christ. But I ask, have they not heard?

Indeed they have, for their voices gone out to all the earth

and their words to the ends of the world.

But I asked, did Israel not understand?

First Moses says I will make you jealous of those who are not a

nation with a foolish nation. I'll make you angry.

Then Isaiah's so bold as to say I've been found by those who did

not seek me. I have shown myself to those who

did not ask for me, but of Israel.

He says all day long I've held out my hands to a disobedient

and contrary people. The last thing I just want to

share with you simply this We need to grieve that not all will

believe it ought to bother you. It ought to bother us that no

matter how hard Paul prayed and proclaimed, not all the

Israelites accepted the good news.

The lost around us may not respond either, but that doesn't

need to stop us. Unbelief will always be an

obstacle, but we got to move forward because our love for

this is not just our love for those people.

We need to love others. We need to love them.

But a primary motivation for us is because we love Jesus and I

can't not tell you about him. We go in faith, not fear, and

we're going to succeed because we have, as this passage says,

the word of Christ. You may know this word.

This is the spoken word of or about Christ.

It's the Rhema, the Rhema word, the spoken word.

So when the gospel is preached, it's God himself who speaks.

It's God himself who calls, it's God himself who saves.

So we need to move out and speak his words so others hear and

believe. And we're going to try to equip

you to do that. So evangelism is a test that

will never end for us. Until we die or until he

returns. We have to constantly,

continuously proclaim the great painter Norman Rockwell died.

And when they went to his house, to a studio, there was one last

unfinished painting on that easel.

And the painting was of a 18th century missionary, John

Sargent, who worked with Native Americans here.

And it was a painting of of the missionary John Sargent trying

to convert a Stockbridge Indian chief.

It just wasn't done. We have an unfinished task

before us. Unfinished people out there.

Maybe you're unfinished here. You're not saved, you're not

complete yet. You're, you haven't surrendered

completely to Jesus yet. And, and, and I'm telling you,

some church in the Rocky Mount area is going to be used by God

to join his mission to be faithful and to grow and to

bring him great glory. And he's going to use them to

redeem and to restore broken lives.

And again, I just beg him. I pray that it's Inglewood.

But first, you might need to hear, you might need to confess,

you might need to believe. So brothers, my heart's desire

and prayer to God for you and for the Rocky Mount area is that

you might be saved and everyone who calls on the norm name of

the Lord will be. So let's pray together.

Father, I thank you that you've entrusted us with the ministry

of reconciliation. You've entrusted us with the

gospel. I don't know how Satan has done

it. You do, of course.

I don't know how Satan has twisted it to where we believe

somehow that once we're saved, once we get the gospel, that

somehow it's just for us. And that's what it's all about.

It's about my salvation. It's about my eternal life.

It's about my fire insurance when that wasn't ever the

intention. You save us so that we can help

others to know you. You want us to be your disciples

so that we can live evangelistically and do that

with boldness and love. Help us to fight the lie.

I know people are afraid. Sometimes.

I think we're more afraid of what lost people might think of

us than we are about what you think about us.

Forgive us for that idolatry. Help us, Father, to take your

love, your truth to a world around us boldly.

Thank you for those who are already doing that now, Father,

there may be someone right here in this room right now.

They they're not ready to do that because they don't even

know you. They haven't received the gospel

themselves yet. So, Father, I pray that as that

gospel has been shared in your word today, that Lord, they

would recognize that you're very real, that you love them, You

created them, you have a purpose for them.

And that right now they would pray, confessing their sin to

you, telling you that they're sorry for their sin and that

they know they can't save themselves from their sin.

And that they would ask Christ to come into their heart to

forgive them, to be their Lord, to be their Savior, to commit to

live for him. And then, Father, I pray that

they would come tell us others need to identify publicly.

They've done this privately, but they've never identified private

publicly. They need to be baptized.

They need to join the church. Others need to pray.

Father, I pray right now that you would burn our minds, burn

in our hearts, the face, the name of someone we know who

doesn't know you, the Lord. We can't escape it.

They're right there and placing us a burden for them.

A moment, Father, when we have a time of response.

Maybe, Father, people need to come and pray for them.

Maybe they need to come and pray for our friends overseas who are

sharing about you there, even when some of us won't share

here. So Father, help us.

Help us to respond to you. Help us to serve you.

Help us to be your disciples in Christ's name, Amen.

Stand with me if you would. We're going to sing together.

They're going to be some pastors here.

We'd love to visit with you if you'd like that.

You can also just come and pray at these steps.

There's also a room right over here called the Next Steps Room.

And there are people in there, dedicated, trained people who

love you. And they'd love to have a

private, discreet conversation with you about whatever God's

laid on your heart. Maybe you just want somebody to

come and pray with you there. And so you can go to straight to

that room. You don't have to come up here.

You can go straight over there or you can come here.

Whatever the Lord leads you to do, just respond.

Thank you so much for listening today.

And I also hope that you'll go to

[email protected] as well as our app and find many

other resources that will bless you and your families.

Thank you once again.