Effective Evangelism

Our Father, when your word is opened, we are all brought under conviction. For to whom much has been given, much will be required. And so our Father, we have now been brought face to face with the urgent nature of the gospel, its global implications. And we have a task now to do something about it.

May this not be a time where we just heap guilt upon ourselves that we later slough off. May this be a time when each and every one of us seriously consider what we might do. To bring about The discipleship of the nations. As Jesus gave in that great commission.

Father, strengthen us with your grace. Empower us for ministry, for your name's sake. Amen. probably one of the best known and, least implemented passages in the New Testament is in Matthew 28 verses 19-20.

Where it says 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'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Well, as I told them in the first service, I'm not here to beat you up with this passage this morning. We all sense our shortcomings, I'm sure, with regard to this great commission that we have been given. But I am here to encourage you this morning and to encourage you to keep on trying to take baby steps of obedience and to see what God will do.

Three years ago, the elders of Foothill Bible Church got together at our annual elder retreat and worked out a mission statement that would give some clarity and direction and focus the ministry at Foothill Bible Church in the years to come. We were looking at the 21st century staring us in the face and we said, where are we going here and what is it, what is it we're about? So after that weekend in the mountains, we came down with this statement, which appears on all of our literature and so forth, but as a guiding principle or a driving statement of philosophy for us.

And it is the Foothill Bible Church exists to diligently pursue Christ and courageously proclaim Him.

We exist to diligently pursue and courageously proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ. And as part of our strategy to implement that vision, We have begun an old fashioned ministry that has fallen on a certain amount of unfavor in evangelicalism today, and that is the old fashioned door to door ministry. And so we have over the last 3 years been able to train up about 140 individuals from junior high up through retired people as well. 140 of them, they go out, not all 140 every month, but we go out once a month, teams of two or three, and we are knocking on the doors in the community in the city of Upland, about 75,000 people.

For years, we have knocked on 10,000 doors, and we've got a long way to go, but it is, it is one way to begin to try to courageously proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ into the community in which God has placed us. As part of that evangelism training, one of the first things we teach people is a definition of. Evangelism. And the way we define effective evangelism at Foothill Bible Church is taking the initiative to share Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, leaving the results up to God, taking the initiative to share Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, leaving the results up to God.

But what is it about Jesus Christ that we're called upon to share? And that's what I want to talk with you this morning about. So, open your Bibles to, John chapter 12, John 12, and we're going to be looking at verses 31 through 36 this morning. I have entitled this message, Effective evangelism.

And I believe there are 4 elements of effective evangelism that we can draw from this passage in John 12:31-36, so that we will become courageous evangelists. That's my goal for this morning. Now this section of John, John 12 is a is a hinge piece in the book, as I'm sure you're aware, the Gospel of John roughly divides into two parts, chapters 1 through 12 of the Book of Signs in which there are seven signs that validate the Godhood of Jesus Christ and then in there in verse chapters 1 through 12 and then beginning in chapter 13, of course there is the in the upper room, the upper room discourse, and that carries you right through essentially the last week of his life through the crucifixion and resurrection.

So here in John 12 and near the end of the 12th chapter, we are near the end of the public ministry of Jesus Christ.

His death is only a matter of a few days away. And so the things that he has to say here are very important because time is short. There is no time to waste any words here now. We've got just, he has just a little time left, and he needs to make sure that he communicates all that he wants to communicate in the time left available to him.

He is still at a relative pinnacle of public support at this time. It is just a day or two after Palm Sunday. So he has come into the city of Jerusalem with great acclaim, right? Hosanna to the son of David, and the throngs have come out for him.

They have littered the road in front of him with palm branches and cloaks and so forth as they welcome the great Messianic king into the capital city. He's there in the temple and he's teaching and the crowds are thronging to him and over on the side, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are mumbling and grumbling and plotting and planning for a way to dispose of him. But at the moment, the crowds are still very much eating out of his hand. He is still very much in favor among them.

That's all going to change very quickly. In a matter of just a couple of days, the same crowds that are yelling hosanna to the son of David, are going to be crying out, right? We have no king but Caesar, and they will call for his blood. But right now, Jesus is still at that moment of popularity.

It is right at the turning point. And so he is going to take this last public appearance because after this, He will disappear from sight publicly to the nation. He will take his last moment and his last opportunity, and he will appeal to them for belief. He is appealing to the nation to believe, and in the process of making that appeal, he's going to teach us something about effective evangelism.

All right, that's where we're going this morning. Let me read the text for you, beginning in verse 31. Now judgment is upon this world. Now, the ruler of this world shall be cast out.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. But he was saying this to indicate the death by which he was to die. The multitude, therefore answered him, we have heard out of the law that the crisis is to remain forever. And how can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up?

Who is this Son of Man? Jesus, therefore said to them for a little while, longer the light is among you, walk while you have the light. The darkness may not overtake you. He who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.

While you have the light, believe in the light, in order that you may become sons of the light. These things Jesus spoke. And he departed and hid himself from them. 4 elements in this text, 4 elements of effective evangelism that I want to see with you this morning, so that we will become the courageous evangelists that God would have us to be.

I've given you a handout in your bulletin. You may follow along there if you'd like, you can pencil in a couple of notes, but those 4 elements are given to you there. That is, first, that our message is judgmental. Secondly, our message is triumphal.

Third, our message is global, and 4th, our message is urgent. Judgmental, triumphal, global and urgent. These are the four elements of effective evangelism. Let's look together here at this first one.

Our message is judgmental here in the first part of verse 31. Now judgment is upon this world. Now, contextually, we need to back up here for a moment and understand what's going on because it, it helps us to interpret the text here. Letting your eyes go back to verse 19, a little bit earlier.

There, of course, Jesus is, is, they're talking about his wild popularity and the Pharisees, therefore, verse 19 say to one another, you see that you are not doing any good. Look, the whole world has gone after him. Now, there were certain Greeks among those who are going up to worship at the feast. And so it is the arrival of the Greeks that really sets in motion this final confrontation with the nation and Jesus.

message here of evangelism. It is the arrival of the world in the person of these few Greeks at the feet of Jesus wanting an interview with him, that set in motion all that will unfold in this passage. Notice also that Jesus, in verse 28, calls out for the Father to glorify him. Excuse me, it says, and therefore there came a voice out of heaven saying, I both glorified and then will glorify it again.

Jesus is at the moment of his glorification. This is the greatest moment in the, in the ministry of the Son of Man. That which looks with eyes of unbelief as to as to be a moment of his greatest humiliation, that is his crucifixion, right? It's exact is actually the moment of his greatest glorification because it is through his cross death and resurrection and then ascension back to the right hand, that Christ brings to play all that the Father had sent him to do.

He initiated They are at the cross. And so this moment is a moment of great glorification. This is a moment of great trial. Now, that's not to minimize the pain and suffering of the cross at all.

That's not the point. The point is to see it with theological eyes and understand that the moment of the humiliation of Christ is the moment of the exaltation of Christ. And so it is here that his glory is now to be on display. And he says that it's a moment verse 31 of judgment.

You see it? Now, judgment is upon this world. Now this is not the judgment, the eschatological judgment, the final judgment where the where the wicked are condemned forever to the lake of fire. That's not the judgment he's talking about.

He's talking about judgment in a different way, judgment in the sense of dividing. Now is the dividing would be a good way to understand what he's talking about here. He's saying that at this moment and from this moment forward, there's going to be a great division among humanity. There are from this moment forward, you're only going to be two kinds of people that walk the earth.

There are going to be those that embrace him as the Messiah, as God's anointed, as the Son of God whose death brings about life everlasting, and those who reject such things. There are those who will walk in the light, and there are those who will refuse the light and remain in the darkness. Those who believe and follow and those who don't. Earlier in John's Gospel chapter 3, verses 19 through 21, judgment is used in the same way.

There it says, this is the judgment that the light is coming into the world. And men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds may be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

God the Father sent God the Son into the world to establish the reality that there is only one way of salvation, only one means by which fallen humanity can be reconciled back to that Creator. And it is through Christ and Christ alone, right? There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we what? must be saved.

He is the dividing mark. There is no reprieve for those who refuse him. There is no salvation outside of him. And even at this moment, at this moment as the Father speaks audibly in support of the Son and audible confirmation of who the Son is, the multitudes failed to understand it.

Look again, verse 29. The Father has spoken. The multitude, therefore, who stood by and heard it was saying that it had thundered. Others were saying an angel has spoken to him.

They don't even receive the witness of the Father at this great moment, and thus prove themselves to be spiritually blind. They are blind, they are of the darkness. The division, the judgment is common and they show themselves to be of the darkness. So it is from this moment forward, that the world is to be sifted, is to be separated into those that that know Christ in a saving way and those that don't.

I can remember when I was young. In the faith, I had an old fundamentalist Baptist preacher and he used to say there are only two kinds of people in the world, David. There are the saints and the ain'ts, and so you are either a saint or you ain't, and that's all there is. And so in his, way of putting it, he's right.

The world has been divided. And to those who follow Christ and those that don't. This is important for us because when we bring the gospel forward, when we evangelize someone, what we're doing is bringing a word of judgment. It is a message of judgment, not in the negative sense, right?

We're not somehow acting as a judge upon them based on our standards. That's not the Point, we are bringing the divide, dividing of excuse me, the dividing word of judgment or the word that separates humanity. We are, we have a separating ministry. When we bring the gospel, it is a, a word of separation of the children of light and children of darkness.

Evangelism, beloved, is judgmental. There's just no two ways about it. Evangelism is a very judgmental activity. And the reason that's true is because Jesus just allows no middle grounds.

There is no middle ground. He will not permit such things. He says in Matthew 12:30, he was not with me is against me. He who does not gather with me was scatters.

You're either with him or you are not. There is no fence sitters, there's no neutral ground. God will not allow such things. When people reject the message of redemption in Jesus Christ, in the words of the apostle Paul, they judge themselves unworthy of eternal life.

Let me illustrate this concept for you. A few weeks ago, we were having some trouble with our email server at work. We were able to send e-mails but not able to receive e-mails. And so for a period of time, the e-mails that were being sent to us, we had no idea, I, it was the first day I'd come to work and my inbox wasn't full of e-mails and I thought, wow, great day.

OK. Maybe I should go home. The problem though was not in the sender of the email. Nor was the problem in the email message itself.

Both the sender and the message did not have a problem. The problem lay with me, the receiver of the message. I was unable to receive the message that they were sending, and that illustrates the reality of the gospel, and that is when someone fails to receive the gospel, the, the problem does not lie with the one who gives the gospel, nor does the problem lie with the gospel message itself. The problem lies with the receiver who refuses it.

Now, this for some reason has been lost on many within evangelicalism today who feel like they need to come in and and tinker and tamper with the gospel and perhaps give it a new coat of paint and and and some decals to make it a little more appealing to people, but the reality they've forgotten is that it is the gospel message given of God, not subject to tampering, and there is nothing you can do to make it more acceptable anyway. We bring a judgmental message. It is a message of hope.

It is a message of, of health, it is a message of redemption through Jesus Christ, but it is a judgmental message, for it divides the world into one of two groups.

Verse 25. He who loves his life loses it. He who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. There is only one of two ways.

You hate it in this life to keep it eternally, you love it and lose it. So we have a judgmental message. Secondly, Secondly, our message is triumphal. Our message is triumphal verse 31 again, now the ruler of this world shall be cast out.

Now the ruler of this world shall be cast out. At this moment, he's saying something is happening, the ruler of this world is to be cast out. Now, the ruler of this world is Satan. He has many other names in the scriptures, known as the devil, he's known as Beelzebub, Abbaddin, Belial and his traditional name Lucifer, right, which means shining one.

There are many descriptive titles of this. Powerful angelic being. He is called the evil one, Matthew 13:19. He's called the ruler of the world, right here, John 12:31.

He's called the God of this world, 2 Corinthians 4:4, the deceiver of the world. Revelation 12:9, it's called the Father of lies and a Murderer, John 8:44, and many other descriptive titles. He is our enemy. He is the enemy of all that is righteous and good.

And he is a, an enemy who is constantly in opposition to God and his work and God's people. He is a hostile opponent, aggressively in opposition to the Lord. He's the leader, we're told in Revelation 12:3 of the heavenly revolt. He was the tempter of Christ, Matthew 4, he's the energizer of the Antichrist.

2 Thess 2:9. He's the deceiver and attacker of Israel, Daniel 9, Revelation 12, and on and on. He is one who is hostile and aggressive in his opposition to God. He is also hostile and aggressive in his opposition.

To the truth. He blinds the mind of the unbelieving. 2 Corinthians 4:4, he snatches away the seed of the word, Matthew 13:19. He introduces deceitful doctrines into the church.

1 Timothy 4:1, he opposes righteousness, Acts 13:8 through 11 and on and on. He is in opposition, aggressive, active opposition to the truth. Finally, he is in aggressive and active opposition to the believers. He is your enemy, and he is not quiet or silent.

He is active in attempting to sin. Acts 5:3:1 Corinthians 7:5. He schemes against us. He hinders the work of God.

12:18. He accuses us falsely, he instigates persecution, Revelation 2:10, and on and on. He is an active and aggressive enemy, Peter said about him. That we are to be sober of spirit, right?

We are to be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, but resist him, firm in your faith, knowing at the same time, excuse me, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. 1 Peter 5:8 and 9. This is the biblical picture of Satan.

He is alive, he is active, is he aggressive, he is hostile, and he's powerful. So if that's true of him, what does Jesus mean here back in John 12:31, that now the ruler of this world shall be cast out? When? How?

What is he talking about? Well, the arrival of the hour of the glorification of Christ, not only means a judgment or a separation upon the world, but it also sign signals the overthrow of the dominion of Satan. That's the answer. It signifies the overthrow of the dominion of Satan.

Long, long ago, right back to the, to Adam and Eve in the garden in Genesis 3:15, there was an ancient promise of hope given. That said that this one, the seat of the serpent will bruise him on the heel, but he will crush his head. Here now the head of Satan is to be crushed, where it says, now the ruler of this world should be cast out and talking about the overthrow of Satan. In God's good providence, Satan had been allowed.

tremendous amount of authority over humanity, over the nations, over the people groups of the world. And then God allowed him to keep them in spiritual bondage. Think with me for a moment, just think back through your Old Testament. How few there are that the scriptures record that were the true followers of, of the Creator God, right?

There was only one man in his family that were saved from the deluge. There is that enigmatic king of Jerusalem, Melchizedek, who, who whisked through the pages of Genesis so quickly and then pops up again in Hebrews and his mysterious and hard to understand, but somehow he appears to have been a Gentile follower of God. We have Abraham himself called out of the Chalde. But essentially, God's work has was confined to just a few people and in particular, the descendants of Abraham.

But notice what happens when you get to the book of Acts, right? You write at the Book of Action, and the door has, has opened to a new way of things happening. It, it documents the dramatic spread of the gospel. The true religion begins to move throughout humanity and people begin to respond, right?

Thousands upon thousands of Gentiles are converted by the end of the 1st century. If you were to look at a map depicting Christianity at the end of the 1st century, the time of the death of the last living apostle John, what you would see is that it went from, from 11 frightened men huddled in an upper room afraid for their lives to it now circles the Mediterranean Sea. Thousands and thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands. One estimate I read said a half a million believers by the end of the 1st century.

There was a dramatic explosion of faith. Michael Green in his book Evangelism in the Early Church, he writes that there and estimates that presently, there are somewhere close to 70,000 people a day being converted to Christ. Now, I don't know if that's true or not, and I, as I said in the first verse, I don't know how you could know whether that's true or not. But that is his estimate of it, that today, it's not dribs and drabs, but there are massive numbers of the nations pouring into the kingdom of God.

It was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ that broke Satan's power. And And that was like breaching a castle wall. It was as if at that moment on the cross, as if the great castle, the great fortress of Satan in which he held, imprisoned the world and its walls breached. They were battered down.

And now there has been an ongoing looting process as prisoners have been rescued from this captivity. Paul says in Colossians 1 verses 13 and 14, he says, For he that is Christ rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The writer of the Hebrews, Hebrews 2:14, 15 says through death, he might render powerless him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death was subject to slavery all their lives.

Satan's fortification, Satan's castle wall has been breached.

There has been a hole ripped through it. And many, many captives are now being set free, but he remains an active and hostile and aggressive and formidable enemy nonetheless. He has a sizable prison population still under his control. Beloved, his ultimate defeat was rendered a certainty here in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, his final destruction awaits Christ's second return, right?

We're there in Revelation 20, we're told he is cast into the lake of fire. Maybe I could illustrate this for you. When I think of the book and it came out as a movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Remember that?

They are near the end of that film, Azon takes the two girls and they go to the castle of the white witch. And there they enter in and and free all those who had been captive under her clutches and they deliver them and they join the victorious armies. the, the level of satanic control prior to the cross is illustrated for us, I think, in the many exorcisms that appear throughout the pages of the Gospels. Throughout Jesus' three-year public ministry, there were repeated exorcisms, repeatedly where Jesus delivered people from demonic possession, far greater than anything that we know of today.

Don't you find it fascinating, I do. Nowhere in the Gospels, indeed nowhere in the New Testament, does it tell you how to determine whether someone is demon possessed. Nor does it tell you how to deal with it if they are. There are no instructional materials anywhere.

And yet it's fascinating to me as I read the gospel accounts that if someone were demon possessed in the gospels, everybody knew. Believers and unbelievers, people just knew that somebody was demon possessed. Evidently, there was something going on of a, of a grand and powerful nature. The demonic activity was at a fever pitch.

I believe it was Satan's last attempts to maintain his savage rule, his oppression of the nations, the peoples of the world. I get to the Revelation chapter 9 and I read during the tribulation period that again there will be a great upswelling of demonic activity. As again Satan attempts to prevent the inevitable. First John 3:8, the Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

So beloved, when we evangelize today, it's with the recognition that our adversary is very powerful. He is very powerful. He is actively opposing the spread of the gospel. But his fortress has been breached, captives are being set free.

Jesus said to Peter, Matthew 8:16:18, I will build my church, right? And the gates of Haiti shall not prevail against it. Beloved, our message is triumphal. It is a triumphal message.

And Jesus Christ died to ensure that it will prevail. It will prevail. So effective evangelism is judgmental. It divides humanity.

Effective evangelism is also triumphal because it understands that it is a search and rescue mission. That has already been won. Third, our mission, our message is global. Third, our message is global versus 32 and 33.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men to myself. But he was saying this to indicate the death by which he was to die. If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. That's a confusing statement, isn't it?

what meaningful sense has every man been drawn to Jesus Christ? The answer has to be they haven't. So therefore, it can't be that Jesus is saying that he will draw all men without exception. What he is saying here is that he will draw all men without distinction.

That he will draw all kinds of men, all kinds of people to himself. You can look back in John 11:52, 5152. Now this he did not say on his own initiative talking about Caiaphas, the high priest here, but being high priest that year, he prophesized that Jesus was going to die for the nation and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one, the children of God who were scattered abroad. You can fast forward to Revelation chapter 5, verse 9, and there the apostle John, near the end of his life is transported into the future into some, in some vision form and, and there he arrives at the throne room of God, and he, he looks at the multitude of throngs that surround the throne.

And he says in verse 9, they sang a new song, saying, Worthy art thou to take the book and break its seals, for thou was slain and purchased for God with thy blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. It is not all men without exception. It is all men without distinction that Jesus says here in John 12, that he will draw to himself if he be lifted up. Now this statement is initiated by the arrival of the Greeks.

I said that earlier back in verse 20 right? Now, there were certain Greeks among those who are going up to worship at the feast. It is the arrival of the Gentiles right there at that moment, the moment when the nation is to reject him, that, that looks forward, the way John arranges his material that it looks forward to signal to us that the message of the gospel is a global message. It is absolutely a global message.

The crossword of Christ does not have merely regional implications. It has worldwide implications. He is the savior of the world in the sense that the world has no other savior, no other savior. The Greeks come to seek an audience with Jesus.

His answer to them is that the hour for him to die has arrived. Now, don't you think that's a strange way to answer their question? I don't know about you. When I read the gospel, many times people come to Christ and they ask him a question, and the answer he gives them never seems to line up with the question they're asking.

And that's because many times he's answering the question behind the question. Here, he's speaking of something far more significant. They want an audience with him on a, on a human level, and he is speaking to them about something far more significant, that by his death, he is going to throw open the gates, rip apart the temple or the veil that shielded the holy of holies, so that access into the very presence of the throne of God is available to all humanity. In the wake of his passion and glorification, they will be able to freely approach him.

No longer will they have to, to approach Andrew and Philip and ask for an audience with the Messiah. They will now walk directly into his presence, beloved, and that's you and me today. We walk directly into his presence. We need no intermediary.

They will have access to him just as surely and freely as the children of the Old Covenant did. Now, the prophecies of the Old Testament indicate in many places that the Gentiles will come. There's nothing new about that. But many of those prophecies, because they are millennial in nature, speaking of that future millennial kingdom when the temple is rebuilt and and Judaism is again restored to a, to a place of prominence, speak about the Gentiles entering along and in and through.

Judaism. Zechariah chapter 8, verses 20 to 23 speaks there about 10 Jews grabbing, or excuse me, 10 Gentiles grabbing the hem of the garment of a Jew and saying, Take me to your leader, basically. And so there was a there was a sense in which for the nation, they did not understand that the reality that they did not have to come or that that the Gentiles did not, would not come through Judaism, but would come directly into the presence of the Messiah. And that is one of the glories of the first coming of Christ.

It is that the veil has been torn, right? The access is available. So I told the first crowd this morning, I didn't notice any of you bringing a goat in with you this morning when you came. Because we don't enter that way any longer.

It has been set aside. We now enter through the blood of the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the earth, by Christ, our savior. Now it took the church a while to get uncorked. It took the New Testament church a while to come to grips with this reality, the worldwide global implications of the gospel.

The early chapters of Acts show that they were having a hard time getting going. They were inwardly focused in the right there. In the capital city, they had a, they had a good little thing going. They had their own little fellowship, right?

It was just us and we don't need anybody else. And so it took a persecution, it took the stoning of Stephen and a persecution to drive them out of the city so that they begin to move out in fulfillment of what was their purpose and mission, that is to bring the good news to the nations. The implications for us are huge. The implications of this text are absolutely huge.

What I wanna do for just the next couple of minutes is, my kid requested of me that I, that I share with you just a few ways that Foothill Bible Church is attempting to, to, implement the implications of this text and many, many others. I do this, not to in any way, set ourselves forward as we've got our act together because we don't. But these are some ways that we are now trying to wrestle with the implications of the fact that the gospel is a global gospel. Foothill Bible Church has been involved in foreign missions since its inception 45 years ago.

We have an active support of foreign missions. Close to 20% of our budget is given to foreign missions. So it's not that that we have not been involved in foreign missions. What has changed and what has caused us to sit up straight and to reevaluate what we're doing is the reality that the world has come to us.

The world has come to us. We live in a time and a place in the city of Los Angeles, in which according to the missions pastor at our church, I asked him earlier this week for that number. He said there are approximately 250 distinct language groups in Los Angeles. 250 different language groups living here.

Los Angeles is one of the most cosmopolitan cities. In the world. There were 3 of them and I meant to try to look between services at the 3rd. 1 of them's LA, one of them's London, and there's another one that I don't remember, but anyway, the point of the matter is that Los Angeles is a cosmopolitan city.

Beloved, it's not about just sending it over there. Send money over there, send a missionary over there. Hey, over there is now here. It's here.

And what is our responsibility? To try to reach people. Who have different cultures than we do, different speak different languages, do things differently than we do. Are we to wall them off?

Are we to wall them off as as alien to us? Continue to send their money overseas. It's fine to convert, to bring people to Christ overseas, but don't, I don't want my neighbor. I don't want my neighbor.

So, we are wrestling with this. And here are some of the ways that we're wrestling with it. A year ago, we, Got together as elders and established through the help of a third party, a 10 year strategic ministry plan, a vision for this, for our church, for Foothill Bible Church for the next 10 years. Two things drive our vision.

Number 1, that by the grace of God, we want to make the gospel available to everybody in the city of Upland every year. 75,000 people, we want to provide them an opportunity to hear the gospel every year. That's #1. Number 2 is that we want to plant 4 churches in the next 10 years.

Those are the two things that are driving by the grace of God, our ministry. Everything we do rolls up into those two twin goals. And they are audacious goals. They are ridiculous goals.

They are absurd goals by any stretch of the imagination without God's direct and active involvement in such a way that no one can claim any credit or glory for anything that is any success that has had other than he alone. Church planting is a sacrificial endeavor. It is a sacrificial endeavor. It requires the constriction of your lifestyle here that you might have something more to invest over here.

And that beloved runs contrary and counter to the American way of doing things. It is live for today, is it not? It's not just money, although it is money. It is also leadership.

It is also the willingness to release to ministry your best people. Not to send to a church plant just somebody who can fog a mirror, but somebody who is serious disciple maker, someone who has proven themselves to be an effective and, and, and trustworthy evangelist. People who know how to do children's ministries, people who are involved in preaching. And so what it means for us is that we must be willing to release our best.

We were tested with this just as we were developing this vision about a year, a little over a year ago when the opportunity came for us to participate in a church plant in Idaho. And the opportunity was for us to send our senior associate pastor to Idaho. He'd been with the church 10 years. He was my right-hand guy for 10 years.

Together, we had ministered. He was beloved in the church. And we sent them to Idaho. And on the night we sent them away, the tears poured out in everyone's eyes as we sent them away, but he went to a little work that had just started up there of 50 people.

And we provided the financial means for that 50 people to be able to have a full-time pastor. He's been there a year. The church now got 125 people in attendance and they're beginning to reach their community for Christ. The sacrifice is huge, sacrificial church planting.

Secondly, we are by the grace of God, looking at something we call outpost alpha, outpost alpha. And what that means for us is that there is a section of our community that is poor and crime ridden. It is a section that most people don't want to go to. They want to drive by or drive around.

And it is there in that section that it is our intention to rent an apartment, maybe two, and to place people to minister right there in that area, that high crime area. We are looking for a couple who will go as a permanent party and then rent a second apartment into which we can place 4 college men and use that on a rotating basis. So we will rotate people through and their responsibilities are to engage the community in which they will now be living. These are young men who say that they have some interest in future ministry for the Lord, some perhaps vocational ministry.

Well, let's figure out what they're made of. Before we invest a lot of money in them and send them overseas, let's figure out whether they can make disciples right here. Can they move cross-culturally 3 miles from their house before we send them, 3000 miles away and find out. So, outpost alpha, we're hoping for outpost alpha, outpost beta, outpost Charlie, and on and on and our hope is that one of them becomes a church plant.

That one of them becomes a church plant. The third strategy that we're working on is, is an outreach to a local community college. There is a local community college that's 14,000 students. It has no serious Christian witness to that campus.

It is a commuter school, it's very transient. School, but we have now found someone who works there. He happens to be a custodian, but he will sponsor us. That's all we needed.

We can now move on to the campus, establish a Christian club, begin to do evangelism campaigns on the campus in hopes of establishing an outpost there too where we can bring the gospel to men and women in that pivotal time of life, their college years. Fourth, we have transformed by the grace of God our deacon ministry from property managers to ministers of mercy. No longer are they responsible to make sure that the bills are paid, that the lights are on, and that the carpet is clean.

They are now responsible for engaging first inside the church and then to the community of the poor.

We are tired of the liberals being the only ones who addressed the poor. It is time for the Church of Jesus Christ to stand up and say that the gospel has social implications, and we are going to try to do something about that. So we are looking to engage the down and out in physical ministry, because we believe that it beautifies the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. When someone is hurting, It's not, there's no point in saying to them, right, be warm, be filled, and be gone.

It is to minister to their needs that you might then have a platform to speak to them about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. These are ways that we are seeking, at this point, by the grace of God to, to engage this world that has come to us. You want to link with us in this, you can pray for us. You can pray for us in these areas.

our God is a missionary God. He is a missionary God. It is he who reached out to us, right? It is he who incarnationally left heaven's throne room of glory to come to be among us, people that aren't so good to be around, to bring us a message of redemption.

God has entrusted us with a global message. we tell people when when they go door to door with us that they don't have to worry about what people open the door. It doesn't matter. Don't worry about who's on the other side of the door.

Because you see, the gospel is the one antidote for the universal problem of mankind called sin. So whoever is behind the door, whoever opens the door, whether they're rich or poor, whether they're educated or ignorant, whether they're moral or immoral, whether they're religious or pagan, Western or eastern, male or female, it does not matter. what's wrong with them and how to solve it. So give them the gospel.

Oh, there is a We have a global answer to a global problem. It's the gospel. Our message is judgmental. Our message is triumphal.

Our message is global, and last, our message is urgent. Our message is urgent. Verse 34. The multitude therefore answered him, we have heard of the law that the crisis will remain forever.

How can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man? Jesus, therefore said to them for a little while longer, the light is among you. Walk while you have the light, the darkness may not overtake you.

He who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light in order that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke, and he departed and hid himself from them. There's an amazing thing that happens here.

This audience knows that Christ is speaking of his death. They know that he's saying he's going to die. What they can't reconcile is their that notion with their idea of Messiah. That's their problem.

They know from Daniel 7:13 and 14 that the Messiah's kingdom, the Son of Man's kingdom, is an eternal kingdom. And so Jesus, who has gone around for the last 3 years, and the title that he most often takes to himself is the Son of Man. And now he's saying he's going to die. I don't get it.

How do you put together the eternality of the kingdom of the Son of Man with this one who claims to be the Son of Man who says he's going to die? Perhaps they thought he was using the title Son of Man differently than they were. They were confused. How is it possible for Messiah to die?

Now, you would think that Jesus would stop and explain that to them, wouldn't you? OK. You see, here's, here's how it works, and he would begin to give them an explanation. But like some of the other times in the gospel, he didn't even respond to their question.

He does not even respond. Verse 34. Right, they asked the question, who is the Son of Man? Jesus, verse 35, responds to them.

And instead of answering the question, he concentrates, he focuses upon the urgency of the moment. He just ignores the question and goes to the urgency of the moment, brought on by his impending death. The crowd is having intellectual difficulties. Jesus says, your problem is moral, not intellectual.

He cut right to the chase. He says the time to believe is limited, right? Verse 35, for a little while longer, the light is among you believe while you have the light. He just completely blows over their intellectual problems, and he presses them with the urgency of belief.

He used a pair of imperatives, 1 in 35, 1 in 36. Verse 35 in the middle, he says, walk while you have the light. Verse 36, believe in the light. Two commands that he gives to them in response to their question, their intellectual problem.

What he says to them is what's keeping you from Christ is not your mind, it is your heart. That you need to believe. You need to walk in the light. You have been given sufficient revelation.

who I am, all that you need to know in order to embrace me by faith, and so, believe. It's fascinating to me. Some years ago, there was a fellow who I had opportunity to interact with about the gospel and, and, And as I was talking with him about the gospel of Christ and his lost condition, he kept wanting to know about Jonah and 3 days in the belly of the whale. Kept wanting to try, kept trying to tape the conversation, but how can it be 3 days?

How can a guy live inside a whale for 3 days? And he's on and on about that. And I said, well, that's interesting and I'd love to talk to you about it sometime, but what we really need to talk about is, if you were to die tonight and stand before God and he should say, why should I let you into my heaven, what is your answer? By the grace of God, by the end of the evening, he repented and embraced Christ by faith.

Some months later, I went up to him and I said, hey, you want to talk about the, Jonah and the whale? He said, no. He said, I guess it was three days. And I said, well, what have you been reading?

And he said, oh, I didn't read anything. He said, but that's what the Bible says. What's the difference? The difference is before he's an unbeliever.

Now he's a believer and he, when as a believer, he has the internal witness of the spirit of God within his heart. He embraces the truth. Beloved, when we've given sufficient revelation, it's time to call for the decision. When people understand their needs, they understand who they are, what their problem is, right?

When they understand who Christ is and what he has done. And it's time to call for a decision. To not decide is to decide. The opportunity for belief may never come again.

The apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 1 and 2, that today is the day of salvation. Now is the time. We should never ever give anybody the idea that they can always believe tomorrow. We should never promise somebody that there'll be another day, another opportunity for them.

You do not know that. You do not know the future. The man who refuses the light. We'll be overtaken by the darkness, Jesus says.

And he will be lost, stumbling through life, morally blind. This is a frightening picture, a frightening picture of the consequences of rebellion. It is an urgency to our message. Notice how verse 36 Jesus ends this.

Engagement. This is his final appeal to the nation. His public ministry ends in verse 36. It's over.

No longer will he speak to the nation. No longer will he appeal to them to repent of their unbelief and embrace him as their Messiah. The banquet invitations have been sent out and the sons of the kingdom ignored them and thus they are cast into outer darkness where there is gnashing of teeth. What is true of the nation is true in each and every individual sense.

There is an urgency to the gospel. It is not at any time you feel like it proposal. Maybe there's somebody here this morning who doesn't know Christ. Today is the day of salvation.

You have no promise of tomorrow. You're in that position here this morning, and not Christ as your savior. You dare not leave this room until you resolve that. I plead with you to come and talk with one of the elders, one of the pastors.

Get it right. Resolve it now. Walk in the light while you still have the light. Beloved, we carry a message that is judgmental, it divides.

We carry a message that is triumphal. Christ has broken Satan's back. We carry a message that is global. Its implications are for all the ethnic groups of the world, including the 250 that have come to us, and our message is urgent.

Our message is urgent. There is no tomorrow promised to anyone. Let us carry courageously this message in the power of the Holy Spirit and leave the results up to God. Let me pray.