Reaching the World B

What are the necessary ingredients for effective evangelism? First of all, to be available, to be present. Secondly, to be filled with awe and wonder and a heart of worshipping love.

Thirdly, to be submissive and eager to participate in the purposes of the great King of all kings. You may never have thought of it in these terms, but you and I are living in a lost world, made up of the people you see in your neighborhood, in your favorite restaurant, in stores, in schools, really everywhere. No doubt many of those lost people are individuals you know, friends, family members, maybe even the person who sat next to you in church last week. On today's grace to you, John MacArthur looks closely at the responsibility you have to proclaim Christ. See what qualifies you for this life-saving role as John continues a practical message titled, Reaching the World.

And now to begin today's lesson, here's John MacArthur. Turn in your Bible to Matthew chapter 28. Beginning in verse 16 of Matthew 28, but the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had designated.

And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.

Now, the question that I simply direct to you and believe this text answers is this question. What is necessary to make me effective in reaching the world? What are the necessary ingredients for effective evangelism? First of all, to be available, to be present. Secondly, to be filled with awe and wonder and a heart of worshiping love.

Thirdly, to be submissive and eager to participate in the purposes of the great King of all kings. It has to be that I live with an attitude that says, The King to whom I submit is my Christ and no other but Him. Now, there are many people who will admit to Christ as their Savior to deliver them from hell. There are many who would admit to Christ as their Advocate to plead their case before God. It seems to me there are fewer who would acknowledge Him as their Sovereign to rule over them in whose kingdom they have the privilege of participatory submission.

Those are His terms and that's where you begin. You don't evangelize the world in a vacuum. You don't make disciples on a whim. It is the overflow of these three great spiritual attitudes. Availability, worship and submission. Show me a willing, worshiping, humble heart.

I'll show you an instrument God will use. So many of us are caught in the inane trivia of the world, spending our time, life, talent, energy, money, resources on stuff that will burn and wondering why God doesn't use us to make disciples. We have to back up and start with these attitudes.

The first place to go for corrective is to your heart and check it out. Do you have a willing heart? Are you available? Are you there listening to the voice of God, communing with Him, hearing Him speak through the Spirit? Do you have a worshiping heart?

Do you have a humble heart submitting to the privilege of sharing in His kingdom? Write down a fourth word. This too, an essential element. The word is obedience. The word is obedience.

Big word, comprehensive word, which we will give a very brief treatment of. Verse 19, go therefore. Therefore, it's a good place for that transition, very good. It's saying this, if you're available and if you're worshipful and if you're submissive, therefore, go. And here we come directly in contact with obedience. We have a command in this verse. The command is make disciples.

The word go is not in the imperative. It is a participle. There are three participles here, going, baptizing, and then one in verse 20, teaching.

Participles modify the main verb. How do you make disciples? By going, baptizing, teaching.

That's the simple structure. Going, He says, that's very obvious. I mean, how are you going to make disciples of all nations unless you're going?

The assumption is they're not coming, you're going. Those three participles put us in touch with a very simple command to make disciples of all the nations and describe how it's to be done. It is interesting to compare this with Mark 16 where Mark records Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. And also with Luke 24, 47, that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations. So He says, make disciples. That involves going. That involves preaching the gospel, which involves the forgiveness of sins, followed by baptism, followed by teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you.

There you have the sum of it all. But it starts with going, or literally having gone, the assumption that you're not going to do this until you've gone somewhere where it needs to be done, right? It all starts with going. But I want to focus on that second thought of baptizing.

For you, by the way, going may be across the campus, across the street, across the state, across the country, or across the ocean. But let's talk about that baptizing term. In Mark's gospel it said, preach the gospel. In Luke's gospel it said, preach forgiveness of sins. Here all it says is, make disciples by going and baptizing.

You say, where's the gospel here? Well, the assumption is that you know that that word baptizing is loaded with gospel preaching because to be baptized is to be visibly carrying out a symbol which illustrates the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism was simply a public sign, a public confession that a person had identified himself in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It assumes then the preaching of the gospel, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and all that was involved in its significance is inherent in the very visual drama of baptism. That important ordinance of immersing a person in water, dunking them in water, is a way for a person who put their faith in Christ, the way, to demonstrate their faith and their union with Christ. Peter preached in Acts 2, he said, repent and be baptized. Paul, in writing Ephesians, says, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

He's talking about water baptism. Baptism became an inseparable reality from salvation. If a person was converted to Jesus Christ, they were baptized. And if a person wasn't willing to be baptized, there was reason to assume that their conversion was not genuine. Every believer is to be baptized. And every believer is to call others to be baptized. That seems to me to be a missing ingredient in our evangelism today.

It seems to me that many people are going, but not all who are going are baptizing. You see, it's only important that you believe for salvation. Yes, salvation is a matter of faith, not water baptism. But water baptism is the sign of true faith because faith without works is what?

Dead. And the very first work that is visible in public is that of baptism. Baptism became so inseparable from leading people to the knowledge of Jesus Christ that when you said baptism, you were referring to conversion. When he says baptizing them, he means leading them to the knowledge of Jesus Christ through the preaching of the gospel so that they identify with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection and commit themselves to confess Him as Lord. That's all inherent in baptizing. It became synonymous with salvation and utterly inseparable.

It's sad to say that we don't emphasize that as we ought to. Calling people to salvation is calling them to baptism in water. That's why you need to be baptized. If you are claiming to be a Christian and have never been baptized, there is reason to be suspicious of the reality of your claim unless you have never heard this before. When we go out to preach Christ, we should call people to be baptized, to make that public identification of their union with Christ, confessing Jesus as Lord with their mouth, and identifying with Him outwardly. If they're unwilling to take that stand and pay that price, there's reason to assume theirs is less than a saving faith. One who refuses baptism is likely not exercising true faith.

Calling people to salvation is the issue. Baptism is the identifying mark. Somebody might say, well, I might get embarrassed if I were baptized. Well, if your personal embarrassment stands between you and baptism, you've got a problem. I don't know what level of faith we could assign that to. I'm not saying that if you've not been baptized, you're not a Christian.

I'm saying there is reason to suspect that. What's holding you back? Some people say, well, it's difficult. Let me read you a letter I got. Mark is a quadriplegic who lives in a ward in a hospital and will live there the rest of his life and is hooked to a respirator.

He's also blind. And he said, I've heard your tapes and I know that if I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, my sins will be forgiven, but I don't know what it means to believe. And so I preached one Sunday morning a sermon on what it means to believe, and then I got the tape and sent it to him. And he wrote me back and said, having heard your tape, I now know what it is to believe, and I believe and I'm saved. I got another letter from the pastor of a local church that's been ministering to him, and this letter is very interesting.

It goes like this. A few weeks ago now, Mark volunteered to me that he was thinking about asking for baptism. He admitted he still had some doubts, but queried, is it alright to be baptized if you just want to be obedient to the Lord?

That desire to be obedient to the Lord became a deep conviction. In checking with the doctor about the possibilities, the doctor observed that Mark could not be dunked without some risk. His connection to his breathing machine is made through a sleeve that fits a little loosely in his throat through his Adam's apple. Mark balked at first, but as he prayed, he decided he would accept the risk if he could be baptized in the normal way. Parenthesis, I had explained plan B to him, which would have been the old Mennonite way of pouring. I've never done it this way, but would have if there was no other way.

End parenthesis. On the day we met at the hospital swimming pool with three others who wanted to be baptized, and most of the folk from our church, Mark's family who don't attend services anywhere, were also there. Because Mark can't speak very loudly and not at all without the breathing machine, one of the fellows from the church brought a PA system along. We took Mark's testimony from his wheelchair.

It was very simple but sweet. He thanked the Lord for forgiving him of his sins and declared that he wants to follow the Lord so he can serve him with his life. The actual baptism was quite an ordeal. The doctor, a Roman Catholic, suggested we let Mark into the water on a sheet. Because of Mark's long-term illness, his bones are very brittle.

One of his legs fractured earlier this year when he was simply lifted into his bath. The fellows who visit him and one of the elders Mark admires were in the water to help him. The doctor and Mark's father lifted Mark out of his chair and laid him at the water's edge. Then the doctor unhooked Mark's breathing machine. Two of the fellows in the water gripped one side of the sheet and the doctor and Mark's dad handed the other side of the sheet to the two others who helped. In the water, I had to use one hand to block off the open air tube in his throat and use the other to hold his nose and push him under. With some quick and considerable effort, because his limp body floats naturally, we got him under. Then we reversed the process and the doctor quickly hooked up the machine again.

It made none of its warning signals. If water had gotten into his lungs, it would have sensed that immediately and Mark would have been hustled off for medical emergency. We all breathed a sigh of relief and thanks. The whole procedure reminded us of the paralytic who was lowered through the hole in the roof on a blanket. This time, however, the man on the sheet didn't have to rely on the faith of his friends. He had his own testimony to give. It was amazing that the hospital was so cooperative.

They could have been very difficult if they had wanted to be. But the day I went to see them about it, I was referred to a deputy instead of the head man. This deputy just happened to be a Baptist.

He has Baptists in very strategic places. And we received the help we had hoped for. Thanks so much for your support, letters, prayers, and encouragement. Just one more thing. Mark wanted me to share these things with you.

He is personally very grateful for your service to him through the tapes and the books. Next year, he will begin to study theology by correspondence and hopes to add more and more to his faith. Wonderful story about wanting to be baptized so much that you'd risk your life to be baptized.

That's the evidence that we should show in our own faith. We have been called by God to make disciples. It involves going. It involves baptizing. We need to be baptized or we can't proclaim it and we need to call others to be baptized.

The third term and the last one is teaching. In verse 20, making disciples involves teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. Making a disciple doesn't end when they believe. It doesn't even end when they are baptized.

It ends at the end. You've got a task at hand and that is to teach them to observe all things I have commanded you. They are to be instructed.

Now listen to this. Making disciples involves going, preaching the gospel, including the forgiveness of sin, calling for saving faith, baptism, and then it involves instructing them to a lifelong obedience. How people can extract that out of the ministry of the church and the ministry of evangelization, I do not know. We are calling people to an overt public identification with Jesus Christ and a lifelong obedience to His commands.

That is what we are calling them to. Why else would you become a mathetes, a learner of Christ if it were not to learn His commands that you might apply them to your life? There's no discipleship apart from personal faith.

There's no discipleship apart from a willingness to be taught the commandments of Christ in order that you might obey His lordship in your life. That's how we are to evangelize and we are to be obedient to this pattern. We are to go to those who do not know. We are to call them to a public confession with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and identification with Jesus Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection. And we are to call them that in coming to Christ they are submitting to a lifelong obedience to His commands.

Let's not cheat on what is the message. We are obediently to proclaim. We start with availability, worship, submission in obedience. We make disciples the way the Lord said to do it. Fifthly and finally, the last word.

Write down the word power, power. Such a noble responsibility, such an eternal task demands something beyond our own resources. And so at the end of verse 20, this great promise, and lo, behold, exclamation, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Or better, not to the termination of something, but to the consummation of everything.

I'm with you to the second coming is what He has in mind. That's the power. That's the power.

Sublime encouragement. You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. He is with you always in the form of His indwelling Holy Spirit.

What a great truth. Yes, the child born was Immanuel, God with us, and He is with us. It is not by human might and not by human strength, but by My Spirit, says the Lord. And until the consummation, not just the cessation of something, but the ultimate consummation of everything, until Jesus comes, He is our power.

He is our resource. Those are the words, beloved, that lie behind a life of effective evangelization. Availability, worship, submission, obedience, and power. And when those are part and parcel of your life, you will be effective for God. David said to the people in 1 Chronicles 29, 5, he said, Who is willing to consecrate His service this day to the Lord? That's the question. Who is willing to consecrate His service this day to the Lord? Who is willing to be available to the Lord's presence, to worship the Lord's person, to submit to the Lord's authority, to obey the Lord's plan, to be empowered by the Lord's might and resource?

Are you? It means stripping your life down to the priorities. Years ago I read a story by S.D. Gordon who was describing a group of men who were preparing to climb Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps. In the evening before the climb, a French guide outlined the prerequisite for success. He said, You will only reach the top by setting aside all the unnecessary accessories and carrying only bare essentials. Well, the next day when they started out for the climb, a young Englishman, you might know it, disagreed and proceeded along the following morning, not only with climbing equipment, but a brightly colored blanket, large pieces of cheese, a bottle of wine, bars of chocolate, and a bunch of camera equipment.

Under the direction of the guide, the group set off behind the Englishman. And along the way, the group found first his bright blanket, then his cameras, then his cheese, then his wine, and that finally last, which was most precious to him, his chocolate. Some of you can identify with that. Finally they discovered him at the top with nothing. And S.D.

Gordon made the application to the Christian life. There are people who on the way to the top drop the non-essentials. There are other people who when they find they can't make it to the top without their stuff, pitch their tent in the plain and let the top go.

And then S.D. Gordon said, and the plain is very full of tents. It's true. The church is a plain full of tents. People who decided to keep the stuff and park a long way from the top. Let's bow in prayer. Lord, it would be a great testimony for us if people who were following us found the trail to the top strewn with all the stuff that we had gladly dropped in wanting to fulfill this high calling. Don't let us pitch our tent in the plain.

Be content to live with the stuff, never reach the top. Help us to drop the stuff. May the people who know us see a trail of it as we pursue the great priority of making disciples. Going to the people we can go to and equipping others to go. Preaching the gospel to the people we can preach it to and equipping others to preach it.

Calling to baptism those who believe and calling others to do the same and then teaching and teaching them to observe all things that you've commanded. We want to fulfill the reason for our existence here by making disciples. Lord, give us that opportunity because we're available, because we're here, because we're submissive, as well as being worshipful. It isn't just that we are in awe of you and so we praise. It is that we are in awe of you and so we submit. And then help us to be obedient to the plan as you've outlined it for proclamation and trust in your power to bring it to pass. We know that we can only reach the world one at a time.

Bring us one this week that we can reach. For the sake of your dear son, we pray all these things. You've been listening to John MacArthur here on Grace to You. John is chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His message today showed you the key ingredients, the preparation that you need for evangelism.

It's titled, Reaching the World. John, as we think about proclaiming the gospel and taking advantage of the receptiveness to biblical truth that tends to exist at Christmas time, what suggestions would you have for listeners who want to take advantage of this season of openness? How can they make strategic use of the Christmas season for sharing the gospel?

You know, I think there's a myriad of ways to introduce that kind of conversation. A simple way is to ask a question, to say to someone if you wanted to find an opening for the gospel, this is Christmas season, what do you think is important about Christmas? Do you know why we as Christians celebrate Christmas? Obviously, you have basically joined the world in stopping everything to celebrate this.

Do you know why? I think starting with that question rather than sort of attacking people on the front end, do you believe in Christ? I think it's helpful to hear them articulate it so that in their own words, they're essentially admitting that they don't understand what it's about.

Right. So I think you want to set the thing up by making them explain where they are in relation to the person of Jesus Christ. And then, you know, the fact that you've said that and you recognize Christ and you recognize that this is the celebration of his birth, do you understand why he came?

Do you understand the point and the purpose of a virgin-born child, a Savior who is Christ the Lord? So I always think it helps if you can have them articulate where they are and then kind of jump in at that point, because then it feels a little bit more like you're answering questions rather than sort of firing at them. I think you can generate a conversation that can be very productive if you let them explain to you what they think about Christmas, and that opens the conversation.

So that's how I would start that conversation in most cases. Good idea. And thank you, Jon. And Friend, as a tool to help explain the significance of Christ's birth to others, let me suggest Jon's book, God's Gift of Christmas. There's still time to get it to a friend before December 25th. Just contact us today. To order online, go to gty.org and be sure to choose the second-day shipping option to ensure delivery before Christmas.

Or you can place your order by phone. Call us at 800-55-GRACE. Our staff is here to help you Monday through Friday, 730 a.m. to 4 o'clock p.m. Pacific time, and they will make sure that you get the right shipping option on your order. Our phone number again, 800-55-GRACE.

And thanks for remembering how important this time of year is for us financially. Listener support these last few weeks will help us start 2022 on a strong financial footing, enabling us to reach across the globe with God's truth and connect hungry listeners with the biblical truth they crave. Express your support when writing to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or you can call us at 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace To You television this Sunday, and then be here next week when John shows you how to worship Jesus as He deserves on Christmas and every day. He's launching a study titled The Jesus of Christmas with another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Monday's Grace To You.