The Dynamics of Devotion V, Devoted to An Evangelistic Lifestyle

Once again, if you turn to Acts chapter two and Acts chapter eight, Acts chapter two, beginning of verse 40 today. And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized. And there were added that day about 3,000 souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread. And the prayers and fear came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they sold the possessions and goods and distributed them to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved. And enter into this idyllic picture of the first century church, the inevitable wave of persecution that came. Acts chapter 8, verse 1. And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria. You see, the party was over. Or was it? Except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Let me say that again or read that again. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. I'd like to read a quote for you this morning as we begin. I have discovered a simple principle in life. No people will be motivated to do anything over a protracted period of time unless they believe it is in their best interest to do so. No people will be motivated to do anything over a protracted period of time unless they believe it is in their best interest to do so. Let me ask you a couple questions about that. Do you believe that? How many of you believe that? How many of you aren't sure? How many of you don't believe that? Who do you think said that? Somebody. A high powered sales motivator like Zig Ziglar or someone like that? Or was it a humanist or some person from a philosophical point of view that needed to know how to manipulate people? No. This quote is from the most recent book of Paul Yonggi Cho, who is the pastor of the world's largest church, 400 and some thousand members in Seoul, Korea. He is talking from a life of experience of watching Christians do what is in their best interest. And he's convinced that this is a principle of life. And you think of it. Why do you exercise? Why do you diet? Why did you get married? I know you've been asking that lately. Why do you work? I'm losing all my notes here, but I'll survive. The reason is, ultimately you believe that it was in your best interest. As totally unselfish as you may have thought you were, in the end, you did those things and are doing them because to not do them would be a source of greater grief or discouragement or hurt or pain than to press on. Now, for the last several weeks, we've been reading and studying about the dynamics of devotion. We've been looking at that the early church as it evidenced its commitment to one another in what four ways devoted to the apostles, teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers. We've read it every Sunday. If you haven't even heard it, at least we've read it. It's right there. And we understand what it means, I think, a little more clearly to be devoted to those ingredients of life together. I want to thank all of you for the invitations to dinner this week. I'm booked up now through October, and I'll be happy to trade off some of my invitations to dinner with someone else who maybe didn't get asked yet. But, you know, two of those ingredients of devotion, prayer and teaching, are pretty much oriented Godward, aren't they? The Bible, the word of God and prayer. And then the other two, the breaking of bread, that's sharing meals, as we talked about last week, and fellowship are horizontal. And we understand that those two ingredients must be in balance in order to have a Christian life that's going on in a cutting edge and being what God wants you to be and bearing fruit. But there's one other characteristic of the New Testament church, one other ingredient of devotion that literally, as you go through the Scriptures, explodes with life. It pours out all through the balance of the Book of Acts and even parts of the rest of the New Testament. It comes out in statements like, whether or not what I'm doing is right, you have to decide. But I know that I must preach and teach what I have seen and heard. It comes out in statements like, and the disciples went about everywhere preaching the gospel. It comes through in Mark, chapter 16 and verse 20 that the church went out abroad preaching the Word. The word. To preach means to declare the good news. We think of preachers, Fred said, as someone who stands up here and has a sermon. But see, preaching means to declare the good news. And anybody who talks to another person in a way that declares the good news, is a preacher. And the New Testament is full of stories of the church being devoted to an evangelistic lifestyle. And that's the title of the teaching for this morning, Being devoted. The dynamic devotion to an evangelistic lifestyle. Now, as difficult as it may be, as even contradictory as it may seem to us, I want to submit to you that the early church was devoted to an evangelistic lifestyle, to winning the lost, to pouring themselves out to the world because it was in their best interest. Most of us probably hold some sort of a contrary opinion of that. How many of you have some idea of evangelism or evangelistic lifestyle as being somebody like Billy Graham? Now, there's the evangelist. Evangelist no.1 like Billy Graham. Or you think of evangelism, you think of someone great from centuries past, like Dwight Moody or someone like that. Or. Or maybe you think of a current TV evangelist, evangelist Jimmy Swagger. Maybe you think of what we do up here most Sundays, as that's evangelism. And we have developed a bit of a mindset that evangelism is what someone else does when they stand up and give an invitation. Or if that's not your point of view, most likely it's something like evangelism. And witnessing is the KP duty of the Christian faith. I mean, everybody has to peel the potatoes for a while in the army, but once you get out of that, then you're on your way. And so we say, well, yeah, I know I need to do that at first, because I guess it's part of the indoctrination of being a good Christian. After all, it is called the Great Commission. And a commission means that somebody's told me to do it right. It's not the great suggestion, as someone once said, it's the Great Commission Commission. But for the early church, beloved, it didn't seem to be the KP duty. It wasn't what they had to do in order to be acceptable to the rest of the body. They were so dynamically motivated. I think we have an overhead of some of the motivations that made them go, just think about this for a second, would you? The early church motivated naturally to an evangelistic lifestyle, number one, because everywhere they went, there was life. Life was happening. Imagine what it would do to you to walk in some morning to the temple and say, well, what happened last night? Well, we had three raised from the dead and six that were healed of crippling diseases. And we lost Ananias and Sapphira. But we're still Ahead in the hole, right? The Bible says that the fear of the Lord was on them. The Bible says that they held the apostles in some sort of reverence, practically. Aw. The Bible says they had such a story to tell. Every time they met something else exciting was happening. So life. That was one of the things that made them motivated to share just naturally and fluently. Secondly, almost in total contrast, they were under heavy persecution. Beloved, it made a choice of following Jesus. You either did or you didn't, because nobody's about to lose their position in the society and many times their family ties if it's just sort of an on and off again kind of thing. You didn't have any wishy washy believers then, because to be a believer in the Jewish culture meant you were cut off from your heritage and your lineage and your families, as it often does today. So persecution was one of the things that made the early church willing to be motivated. It just drove them out. In fact, I was reading similarly in this century. Richard Wurmbrand, who was the prison pastor who served 14 years in communist prisons for his faith, was talking about witnessing with D. James Kennedy down in Florida. And he said he showed me pictures of three men who were being sentenced to five, 10 and 15 year terms in Siberia for evangelizing. As I was looking at the picture, I asked him, with that kind of repression, are there many Christians behind the Iron Curtain who witness? I'll never forget his response. Kennedy says it was as if sparks flew out of his eyes as he said impassionedly, do many Christians witness? I never knew a Christian that didn't witness. You see, I believe it's the same thing we saw in the early church. Every Christian saw not just their responsibility, but their privilege to bear testimony, to witness, to declare the good news of Jesus. The third thing that I think impelled the early church into sharing the Word was the presence of the apostles. There was all through the book of Acts, there was apostolic encouragement to be there to do it. Isn't it fascinating? Do you remember Acts 8 we just read? What does the Bible say about the apostles? They weren't scattered about preaching. The whole rest of the church was run out of town, but the apostles stayed. And so it wasn't the apostles out doing the evangelizing. It was the church. And the apostles were back, encouraging, instructing, equipping, teaching. I have to say also it probably was a great encouragement to know that right there next to me was a person who was an eyewitness to the resurrection. That was the definition of the early Apostle, he saw it. And so the times when I doubted he could say, brother, I saw it. I know it was real. And fourthly, the peace that was being spread around, the peace of God that the Jews had searched for for centuries was being ministered everywhere they went. And so it was a natural thing because when they discovered the peace that their forefathers and fathers had talked about, they were experiencing it. And they said, well, you know, I've got to share this. This is what my family's been looking for. And so that response was natural, the response of sharing wherever they went. And so those four motivations were present in the early church. Now, as you look up there, some of those are present today and some of them aren't. And yet the church, the average believer in the average church today, Beloved, has never witnessed to one person, never shared their faith with one other person. In fact, statistics would show that 90% of Christians today have never led another person to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe, you know, in your own life if that's true or not. But in a word, they were experiencing the real thing, the real life, and they knew that, that what they had was right and real and they wanted to share it. And, you know, it was still, despite all of that, in their best interest to do so. They began to recognize that the teaching that Luke and others had brought of the words of Jesus were true. That when Luke told them that Jesus had said, give and it will be given to you, pressed down, shaken together and running over, they knew as they did this very thing of sharing, that it was true. The more they gave of themselves, the more they received of life, the more they shared, the more it was open to them of revelation. The more they explained, the more they came to understand. Do you ever find that? Have you ever taught a class in Sunday school? Anybody who learns the most? Well, that's not going to be true in our classes today. Paul's going to be teaching and he already, he knows most of this. But I want you to challenge him today as he starts in that class at 11. And same with Dave Lloyd. But we do, don't we? Honestly, we learn the most. We do. The early church found that out. As they explained who Jesus was, they found out more about him. The more they risked, the more they gained. In a word, they found that what the early apostles were teaching them, Remember, they didn't have the scriptures, right? No one told them, hey, turn to Luke 6:38, and you'll see that God said it there. No, it was all oral. It was verbal. But they knew that what they were hearing was right and it was working. And so let me say again, they were devoted to an evangelistic lifestyle because they found it was there to them in their best interest. Now you say, well, wait a minute. That sure doesn't sound like something that George Verwell would say from Operation Mobilization. That sure doesn't sound like the kind of motivation I would hear from Lauren Cunningham of Youth with the Mission or some other missionary leader who has recruited hundreds and thousands of students and so on. But, beloved, let me say to you, I really believe that in the end, if we examine the Scripture and if we look at our own hearts, to follow Jesus Christ and to share his Word is the ultimate motivation for us because it's in our best interest. It is. Many people who join missionary organizations recognize that for them it's in their best interest to go overseas. You say, well, that's not what it says when someone says, come and die. How's that in their best interest? And I believe it's in their best interest because they recognize that to not go, to be disobedient would be for them a life of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment. And it's in their best interest to hear God and to obey his voice. And as we sit here today and as we consider our future as a church, I want to ask us this morning, are we really convinced that to evangelize will be to our best interest, corporately and personally? I wonder about that. Are we convinced of it? How many of you have ever had an occasion of sharing the Lord with someone? And during the process, and even after the process, you felt very, very uncomfortable. Or maybe you became intimidated by their responses and felt foolish because you didn't have the answers. Maybe you began to be afraid that somehow from that point on, you were going to be pegged in your little part of the office as being a real weirdo? Or maybe the fear of being accused of meddling in other people's lives. Because the common response when you begin to talk about the love of God in Jesus Christ is, well, that's fine for you, or I have my way and you have your way, and don't push your way on me, and you begin to now forever. I can't undo that, and they're going to know that I am a weirdo. But in truth, that fear of rejection binds many of us from ever opening our mouths. Am I right? Our common perception is that we will be rejected, categorized, separated, and in some way diminished in our esteem in the eyes of others. And therefore we don't do it. I know because I live there too. I know what it's like to make a nice safe conversation a little uncomfortable. Now all of this motivation in our own best self interest can sound awful, selfish, beloved, if you put it in the context of what the consequences are for that other person. You know, I don't know if you ever get moments alone when you just begin to realize that life is moving along kind of quickly and pretty soon we're all going to go the way that people have gone for years and generations before us and that either this is all right and it's all true and it all makes sense and in the end Jesus is Lord and eternity is with him. And there is a hell and there is death and there is torment and there is separation. Either this is all true or we are all just kind of floating along and whatever you feel like is okay. Do you ever think about that? That your neighbor next to you, that it does make a difference for eternity, that God's perception of eternity is right and we are so limited because we see life in terms of gee, I want my neighbor to like me. When real love for your neighbor may be tell him about Jesus and if he doesn't like you, it's still worth it because one day that seed may become life in him. Perspective is everything, everything. And I believe that we're kind of ignorant in our perspective many times, you know that it's like my son Jonathan about a month ago, his perspective of what really is going on is just. He sees it from a five year old's eyes or six year old now. And I think we see eternity from. Let me use the analogy of five year old eyes. We were in the car riding along and it was just about Jonathan's birthday and you know, his perceptions are. And we were talking about what it means. He's just about to be six years old and how old is the United States of America? Riding along in my Honda and he says, daddy, how old is this car? I said, I guess it's about three years old now. And he said, oh, it's pretty big for three. I said, well, wait till it's 10. But you see the simple innocence of not understanding perception. And I think we're like that with God. We look around and see the immediate and we put in the framework of what we know today. But God sees eternity and he sees the value of people because he sees them for eternity. Now nonetheless though, the mature perspective is eternal and that alone should be motivation enough. I want to just Conclude this morning. I want to go through quickly four motivations that will demonstrate that for us to learn an evangelistic lifestyle is in our own best interest. Let me share them with you. Number one, The long range blessings of sharing the Gospel. The first one is the joy of being a spiritual parent or the blessing of having spiritual children. Look at Philippians 4. 1 while we're here, I think it's worth noting how Paul felt about it. Philippians 4:1. Therefore, my brethren, whom I love and long for my joy and crown. He's talking about the church that he established. My joy and my crown. I believe that one of the personal benefits, one of the things that's in your best interest in sharing the gospel is becoming spiritual parent. How many of you are here today and would say one of the life changing things that's benefited you in your own personal history is leading someone else to Christ and watching them grow. Anybody? There is nothing like it. There's nothing like the sense of watching someone receive truth and find their life, get in order and to recognize that it's not going to end a week from Saturday for them and it's not going to end in three years and they're not going to be out of the club in 10, but it's going to go on and you're going to share eternity together. I don't know personally anyone who is married who does not want to have children. I've met some people who delayed it for a long time and I've met a few who thought they didn't. And I expect there are some who don't. But I've never met them or gotten to know anyone like that. Why is that? Because when you hear some of the horror stories of kids, right, you wonder why would anyone. Why are people so desperate, people spending thousands of dollars for fertility tests and people waiting in line for years to get an adopted baby? Why? Because there is no greater joy than to give life. USA Today said the highest joy of American males by their own poll was about 68% of them saying was being a dad. That was remarkable to me. Because that living thing is unbounded. It's infinite in its potential and beloved spiritually, it's all the more that way. Imagine being the person who led Billy Graham to Christ. Wow. You wonder if anybody's watching that. That's quite a biggie, right? Significant. You don't know the person that you lead to. The Lord may be a person that God uses visibly and powerfully, though you may never be known. I don't know who Led Billy Graham to the Lord. I know a couple people that pray for him, go everywhere he goes and pray for him. Church isn't. I mean, that's it. The spiritual potential that you're part of. And being a spiritual parent, by the way, also is one of the fastest ways to mature you. You know that we have some young parents here, babies born in the last couple of months. I don't know any way to grow up faster than to have a baby. Right? It's the same spiritually. You have to mature because that person's depending on you. You don't just say to your little baby, well, hey, I want my time off from you. Can we work this out? No, you have to give yourself away. And giving yourself away matures you. Secondly, the long range blessing of sharing the Gospel is the blessing of pleasing God. Boy, could I talk about this a lot. First, Thessalonians 2, 4. Paul says, this is what I say, not what pleases men, but what pleases God. But you know, to me, the greatest model of this, it's Jesus. Jesus himself models the truth of the blessing, the benefit of pleasing God as we share his word. The Father said of Jesus, behold my beloved Son, of whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3:17. And then Jesus himself in John 8:29, said, I always do what pleases the Father. Now what did he do? Did he set up an office somewhere? And he said, well, I want to come to talk about the Kingdom of God. I'll be in my office. You can stop by. Was he passive about sharing the Gospel? As long as it doesn't interfere with the flow of your life. I thought I might interject this little bit of knowledge to you. Was that his style? The Jesus that we read about in the Gospels was not passive or open to sharing. He was aggressive. Luke 19:10 said, for the Son of man has come to say it, seek and save the lost. What does seek mean? Take initiative, look for, go out and move around in order to find. I want to ask you today, is that true about you? Are you seeking to save the lost? In Mark 1, Jesus is in prayer. Well, there's no higher calling than prayer. We all know that. And the disciples find him and he gets up and he says, let's go on to another city. Because that's why I came to preach in all the towns and cities of the people of Israel. Are you more acceptable if you share the gospel? More acceptable to God? No. Never forget that you're acceptable if you never open your mouth. But I want to hear me now. Are you more pleasing to God. To obey is better than sacrifice. Don't be deluded. We have bought into this thing that whatever we do and no matter what we are, God just. He treats us all the same. I don't believe that. I believe people that seek to serve the Lord with all of their hearts are honored by God. And history will bear that out. And you can be one of those people by his grace. Third, the long range blessing of having your burden lifted. What burden am I talking about? I'm talking about the burden that anyone here today who knows the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, you know you should be sharing, don't you? You know that you should be. It's like prayer, you know, you should be praying. You know what the greatest way to alleviate that burden is? Try it. Pray. Pray. When we know that we should be, when we know we've been called to be, when we know we ought to be, if we do it, it lifts the burden. What happens if you don't pay your taxes? Yeah, you can get away with it for a while, usually. Generally, the pressure comes kind of quickly. You know, it's hanging right there. You know, it's got to happen. It's got to be done. What's the quickest way to get out from underneath that burden? Do it. Do it. Have you ever had the occasion, as I have on a number of instances, where the Lord was prompting you to share with somebody and you put it off. And then when finally the Lord said, are you going to do it or not? And you went and did it. It was the greatest exhilaration. I was driving down toward Route 8 on Duncan Avenue and there's a big old house there along the way. And I drove by. Now, this was some years ago. I don't know if I'd do it again, but I was driving down there and I saw this old couple sitting up in this old house in a rocking chair. And I drove right by my normal 30, 25 miles an hour. And the Lord just quickened my heart. They need to hear of my love. Okay, Lord, would you send them somebody? Because I'm really. I'm on my way to Route 8. I prayed for God and I got down to the Allison park assembly of God. And right then, it was a confirmation or something, but I pulled in there, turned around and went back in. Have you ever tried walking up to someone's house? Hello? This may sound strange to you, it sounds strange to me. But God said for me, and I just shared with them the love of God. They fell down and repented right there. No, they didn't. They just said, well, thank you, thank you. We appreciate your concern. That's all he said. I don't know why, but I know this. If I kept going, I'd have thought about that and thought about that until I pushed it down far enough that I didn't think about it anymore. Anymore. You know that joy too, don't you? You know what it's like to finally say, okay, Lord, the joy of having a burden lifted. I could go on running out of time. Paul says in First Corinthians 9:16, Woe is me if I don't preach the gospel. He said, I don't have any choice in the matter. He said, but if I do it willingly, it's a great reward for. I'll tell you. And if you don't feel it, if you don't feel the burden I'm talking about, if you never think about sharing, can I say it to you? It's because somehow along the way you've convinced yourself that it doesn't really matter. Dawson Trotman, who founded the Navigators, a great evangelist, a discipler of men and women, said, no one ever followed Jesus who didn't become a fisher of men. If you're not fishing, it's questionable how closely you're following. If you're not fishing, it's questionable how closely you're following. Finally, the blessing of the faithful servant's reward. I began to just ask the Lord for confirmation about this. If to give a cup of cold water to someone in Jesus name will not go without its reward, imagine what it must be in the eyes of God for you to have been faithful to deliver the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The life changing power of the Word. If God said to us that the faithful servant who visited someone who was sick would receive a reward, how much more the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul says in First Corinthians 9:17 that there is a great reward in willingly preaching the Word. And Jesus said, blessed are you if men revile you and persecute you for my name's sake. What does blessed mean? It means happy. There's a reward, there's a happiness. I have to say I don't believe I've ever met a depressed evangelist. Because good news and depression don't go hand in hand. Somebody who's sharing the Word is a way of life. Now we're talking about lifestyle here is not going to be depressed. And the reason is beloved. There's the reward of knowing that you're Making a difference in somebody's life. People say often to me, well, what's the greatest reward of your ministry? They're always saying that somewhat, kind of like, especially if it's someone who doesn't know Christ, it's a shame you wasted your life. What's the greatest reward of being a pastor? Right. And I have to say to them, inevitably, it's the joy of seeing someone's life totally, undeniably, completely changed in its direction and in its quality. It's life. And that is a reward that I can't put a value on. You can't put a dollar in cents. One great blessing of being in Pittsburgh now for getting close to 11 years in ministry is I've seen some of the junior hires that I ministered to back in 1973 and four now married and having families and serving the Lord. And I'll tell you, there's no greater joy than that. And those of you who are parents know that joy, the blessing, the reward of the faithful servant. And so I conclude, what is our posture going to be? Church. Are we going to be open? Yeah, I'm open. If someone asks me about Jesus, I guess I'll tell them about it. Or are we going to be devoted? That's the question today. Let me give you a place to begin. Paula, would you put that last overhead up, please? Where do we begin? We begin, number one, by acknowledging our faithlessness. Fred on Thursday night at TNT asks the question about people entering into dialog and conversation. Less than 50% of the people there had shared the Lord with anybody in the last six months. Let's acknowledge our faithlessness. Church. The only sin is to say, well, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Number two, let's declare our willingness to be devoted. Lord, I've not been where I want to be, but I'm willing. I'm willing. And finally, let's begin by receiving his almightiness. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be my witnesses. Praise the Lord. Would you join hands with someone as we pray together? Father, this room is filled with people today because someone had the courage to share. Whether it was a parent or a friend or an associate, a child. Perhaps someone had the courage to share the love of God in Jesus Christ. Someone was devoted in their lifestyle enough to be a witness. And Lord, we pray now that it wouldn't just be a one day shot in the arm, Lord, but the birthing of a lifestyle that will begin to characterize this. People devoted to sharing your word. In Jesus name, amen.