A Call to Evangelism

Weekly Update – July 25th, 2024

Our summer sermon series in Amos has been one of my favorites this year.  Not because I love to hear of judgment as given by Amos in his short book, but because of the number of men we had communicate it to us as a church.  It is probably no surprise to say that Amos is not the easiest book to understand.  You read about “the cows of Bashan” (4:1), “Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god” (5:26) and “a basket of summer fruit” (8:1) and you are likely walk away scratching your head.  Yet, we have a number of men that our church is blessed with who “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).  Hopefully what you saw then was not a confusing prophecy, but a book about God’s standard for righteous living and the hope of a redeemer for every single one of us who fall short of this standard. 

This week we will transition a bit.  We won’t enter into a full-blown book of the Bible study as we typically do, instead, we will spend three weeks in Romans 10.  My goal in spending this time here is to encourage you in your personal evangelism as we look towards the fall. As a note of honesty here, one of the areas that I often feel most convicted in is in personally sharing the gospel with others.  I know that I’m not alone in this either.  It is easy to shy away from making Christ known to others by either a lack of intentional effort, fear over what to say, or even the failure to be spiritually prepared.  Therefore, I want to spend this time with you specifically encouraging you in this area. 

Here is what our three weeks will look like:

First, in Romans 10:1-4 we will see The Heart for Salvation.  This is really a crucial passage in the context of where it is within the message of Romans.  In chapter 9, the apostle Paul says that God will have mercy on who he wants to have mercy and compassion on who he wants to have compassion (9:14).  Yet, in Romans 10:1 we see that Paul has this desire and prayer to God that he might work and save his fellow countrymen.  How can Paul pray this, knowing that it is God’s will to save whom he pleases?  He can pray this because salvation is to “everyone who believes” (10:4).  Therefore, the heart for salvation, is to see the lost saved, fueled by God’s sovereign mercy, given to all who would believe. 

Second, in Romans 10:5-13 we see The Message of Salvation.  Romans 10:4 says that “righteousness (is given) to everyone who believes.”  The question is, what does it mean to believe?  Paul addresses that in verse 9 when he says that “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.”  The result of this belief is that you “will not be put to shame” (10:11).  That means that the message that we communicate in salvation is that we need the righteousness of God, but that righteousness is given to us “based on faith” (10:8) to all who believe.

Third, in Romans 10:14-17 we see The Proclamation of Salvation to All. The apostle Paul is not only concerned that we have a heart for salvation and that we understand the message of salvation, but that we also proclaim salvation to all. In many ways, this is the pinnacle of our short series here.  Lets say that your neighbor is dying of cancer, but you have the solution.  You want them to be saved, you know how they can be saved, yet you don’t tell them or offer them the answer.  Then your desire and knowledge mean nothing to them.  In the same way, the heart must be there in our evangelism, we must clearly understand the message, but if we don’t proclaim it, then what good is it to the lost around us.  This is the logic that the apostle Paul walks us through as he concludes, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (10:17).

As we think about the call to evangelism, lets be encouraged by the apostle Paul in Romans 10 to fulfill that calling.  Sure, there are some who are specifically gifted as evangelists, but all of us have the responsibility to make Christ known to others.  Our desire as a church is not to only have a couple of events throughout the year that might draw some in to begin attending, but to raise up a community of Christians that are committed to sharing the gospel as a way of life.  Let us seek to be those people.

Serving Him with You,
Pastor Michael Nelson