Ishmael LaBiosa: Well, good morning, Liberty Baptist Church. Pastor Rusty is on vacation. And he said, Pastor Ishmael, you're up. And he said, Why don't you talk about evangelism? You'd like talking about that. And I said, Sure, I like talking about evangelism. So I'm going continue the You Asked Sermon series. And today we're going to look at the big question: how can I be effective in evangelism and personal witnessing? And I'm sure you guys are very good at this. I'm sure you've got The answer to all these things, but it's good to be reminded in Scripture of why witnessing is important, but also maybe some new tools and tactics to help you along the way. Well, what is evangelism? Evangelism means to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. That's what that means. And the purpose of evangelism is to identify the need to turn away from sin and self and recognize that we need a savior, and that is Jesus Christ. And that is what evangelism is all about, and that is the gospel. And so some people may think that the job of evangelism is up to the pastors, or it's up to the deacons, or up to the Sunday school teachers, but the Bible doesn't say that, does it? It's actually up to the Christian, it's up to the believer to make disciples of Jesus Christ. And so while it's not just up to us, it is up to you. It is the job of the pastors, the deacons, and the Sunday school teachers to equip you to make sure you know how to share the gospel well. I think it would be interesting to take a survey of everyone today to find out where you are in ⁓ your confidence with sharing the gospel. I'm sure we might find some that say, Man, I've been doing this forever. You ain't gotta tell me anything new. And you might find some who say, you know what, I've never actually done that before. And I might learn a couple of things today. And so ⁓ it is important for us to kind of evaluate. How we are doing this and how often we're doing this and and the importance of it. Some people say, you know what, evangelism is just too difficult for me. I I I can't talk in front of people. I I can't carry on a conversation that might sound intelligent about the Bible. And ⁓ while that might be true, again, we're still not opted out from sharing the gospel. We're still commanded to do that according to the scripture. And so The question then becomes how can you evangelize from the gifts and talents that God has given you? Well how He's equipped you. And you know, it's actually a little more difficult for Pastor Rusty and I to reach the masses as much as it's easier for you because of where you serve, where you work, where you go to school, where you go to the store, the baseball games and all those things, you guys have probably more influence than we do because of the People that you're meeting along the way. And so then it becomes even more invaluable for you to know how to share the gospel because you can make a bigger splash than Pastor Rusty and I from here at the church office. But nonetheless, we're going to look today and I hope hearing this message that you are encouraged to be reminded of what scripture says about this, but also how you can do it just a little bit better. If you want to join me, we're going to go into the New Testament here, Luke chapter 8. We're going to take a look at the parable of the sower. You know this ⁓ passage of scripture well, I am sure, but we're gonna take a look and be reminded of what God tells us how we're supposed to do this. Our first point for today is this to be effective in evangelism, we must have a solid foundation of what we believe in order to share it. If we don't know what we believe, it makes it a little bit more harder to talk about. So it's important to even understand the foundation of your gospel belief. So in Luke 8 4 it says this as a large crowd was gathering, and people were flocking to him from every town, he said in a parable, Jesus talking here, a sower went out to sow his seed, as it as he was sowing, some fell along the path. It was trampled on, and the birds of the sky ate it up. Other seed fell on the rock, when it sprang up, it withered, since it lacked moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. Still other seed fell on good ground. When it sprang up it produced a crop, one hundred times what was sown. As he said this, he called out, Any one who has ears to hear should listen. Then his disciples asked him, What does this parable mean? So he said, The secrets of the kingdom of God have been given for you to know, but to the rest it is in parables, so that looking they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. This is the meaning of the parable. The seed is the word of God. The seeds along the path are those who have heard, then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. And the seeds on the rock are those who, when they hear, welcome the word with joy. Having no root, these believe for a while and depart in a time of testing. As for the seed that fell among thorns, these are the ones who, when they have heard, go on their way and are choked with worries, riches, and pleasures of life, and produce no mature fruit. But the seed in the ground, the good ground, these are the ones who, having heard the word with an honest and good heart, hold on to it, and by enduring bear fruit. No one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a basket or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see the light. For nothing is for nothing is concealed that won't be revealed, and nothing hidden that won't be made known and come to light. Therefore, take care how you listen, for whoever has More will be given to him, and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has, will be taken away from him. So here we go. Jesus points out in this parable how God has is instructing us and what it means, what it what happens when you share the gospel, and how often that that that actually takes ground, and actually people listen to the message and and actually change their lives. The first thing you should notice at the beginning of this parable is the obvious that there is a sower. And there is a seed, okay? The seed is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the sower is who? You. You're the sower, okay? Sower and the seed. And what did the sower do with the seed? He went out. That's the action item, okay? He went out with a seed. A good farmer doesn't just go to the store, pick up the seed, put the bags of seed in his barn, and then expect miraculously that corn and beans and all cucumbers and things are growing in their field, right? No. The farmer has to work hard at it. The farmer's gotta till the land, he's gotta put the seed in, he's gotta water it, all these things. It takes hard work. And so a good farmer works hard to do this. And when we apply this to sharing the gospel, you know, I I try to think, practically speaking, what does it look like to share the gospel? And every scenario is different. A lot of times this is kind of my go-to, okay? When I share the gospel, I think about this person who may not know God at all. And so I like to start at the very beginning. And so I'll say that, hey, the very beginning before this existed, before you existed, before this world existed, there was God. God existed before it all. And Genesis 1.1 tells us that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's an easy verse to remember. We can remember that one. Very first verse in the Bible. And so I like to just set the groundwork of, hey, this, there's nothing that anyone else has done. There wasn't a big bang other than the big bang that maybe God had used to make the earth, but God is the one that created it all. And it's important to realize there's a God that we serve. And then ⁓ God created the the world. He created Adam and Eve and He said it was good. And then came along sin. Devil the devil came along and tempted Adam and Eve. They fell into temptation, and immediately sin was introduced into the world, and that sin separates our relationship from God. God wants a personal relationship with you, and sin is preventing you from having that relationship. So you have to understand first that you're a sinner. We've all been born into sin, and we need someone to save us of our sin. And then later in scripture, we read in the New Testament that God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ. He walked the earth, 100% man, 100% God. He healed people, performed many miracles, and then one day he hung on the cross for our sins, died a cruel death for you and me. Story doesn't end there. God raised him from the dead three days later. God has power over death, friend. And then I would say something like this you know, Jesus went through that for you. And you can experience the same thing. One day, friend, you're going to die. You're going to breathe your last on this earth. And then the question is, where is your faith? The Bible tells us there's one of two places you're going to go. One place is not great, the other place is amazing. And God wants you to experience eternity with Him in heaven. And what you have to do is admit of your sins and trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But friend, it doesn't end there. That's not it. Like, we have to continue to water the plant. We have to continue to work the soil. We have to continue to work at our faith in Jesus Christ. And so that doesn't mean we just make that decision one day and then just forget about it and move on. That means we've got to really put it into practice. That means we've got to my next question to this person that I'm witnessing to would be Do you have a Bible? God's holy word. I believe it's the inerrant word of God from Genesis to Revelation. Every word of it is true and you have to apply it to your life. Some of it's difficult to understand, but that's why you go to church. You need to get plugged into a local body that that believes the word of God, that preaches the word of God, and then get involved into a small group to get you ⁓ strengthened and challenged to to walk in God's Word. That's kind of my my process that I go through when I share the good news. and so everyone has a different way of Of approaching it, and that's fine as long as we're sticking to God's word. And so the parable of the sower points out that as believers in Jesus Christ, we should understand that message, and we are to go out into the world and share this with everyone. And this means there will be times when you share it and you won't see a change in someone. And when you s when you experience that, that can be a little ⁓ you know, you can feel like maybe I didn't do a good job. Maybe I didn't do this right. This person he didn't change his life at all. She didn't change her life at all. Maybe it's something that I did. But that's not that's not how this works, actually. God tells us to go and make disciples. He tells us to go and share the gospel, but we can't save people, can we? It's not us up to us to save anyone. It's up to God and that person to make that choice to understand the message of Jesus Christ. And that's what we're pointing them to. And there'll be other times when someone does make a decision. I I'm happy to report that after our nine thirty service we had a young lady come up to the front and she said, Ishmael, I wanna put my faith in Jesus Christ. And so I was able to sit down with her, show her what it looks like in the Bible. Amen. We can we can praise the Lord for that. Her and her husband are are have come back to church here after being gone for a little bit. And so just like that, here in the gospel message, lives are transformed. And of course I had that same follow-up conversation of here's what you gotta do next to keep your faith growing. And so it's very important that we acknowledge, you know, we're not gonna always we want the greatest outcome of someone putting their foot faith and trust in Jesus Christ, but we're gonna see various decisions as as God is working in their life. ⁓ you know, one of the most impactful ways that you can evangelize is not ⁓ going on the street corner and shouting out the gospel. I don't know if you ever been to like New York City. ⁓ I know Roger, you just came back from Nashville. You know, sometimes you go to these big cities and you'll see somebody with a mega megaphone just screaming out the gospel message. And w wh while I appreciate that, you know, we are sharing the gospel, sometimes it's just a little much, you know, when you're trying to walk down the street. ⁓ I'm not I'm not saying we have to do that, but really you're living it out. People should see something completely different in you than they see in the rest of the world. So when you're at work, when you're at the grocery store, when you're at school, when you're doing life with people, they should say there is something different about this person. What is it with you? Like, you know, how how do you have so much joy? they should see fruit of the spirit, shouldn't they? They should see that in us. If if they're not seeing that in us, then maybe we need to re examine where we are in our faith. Well, I would hope some people would see something different. ⁓ I had the opportunity to go to Camp Eagle with the youth group. ⁓ had a phenomenal week ⁓ a couple of weeks ago. We survived. Last year we had high 90s for the weather. This time it was beautiful weather. And as a good associate pastor, whenever the word was shared ⁓ at the end of the message, we had an amazing pastor from West Virginia who preached on the life of Peter, just did an amazing job, and ⁓ kids responded every night. And so as a good associate pastor, I thought, well, I'll least better go back in the back with it with the counselors, just in case we have too many kids and I'm able to step in. Well, God did use me one night. And ⁓ there was a young man, twelve years old, his name is Roman, and he came forward and ⁓ said, Hey man, come on. So we went to a corner and and ⁓ we sat down and ⁓ so I I just simply asked, So what's going on in your life? And he's emotional. I can see that God is just working in his heart and he's he's literally crying. as I'm trying to talk to him. And I could tell that he just needed a minute to kind of pull himself together. And so I decided to use that moment to share my testimony. I simply shared, hey man, I was eleven. I was just a year younger than you when I got saved. And here's what what happened with my testimony. And I shared all that with him just to kind of get him more comfortable. And I said, Roman, why did you come forward tonight? What's going on in your heart? I never want to assume, you know, that someone's saved or not saved or whatever. Tell me what's going on in your heart. And he said, Man, I just I don't think I understand. I don't understand what it means to be a Christian. And I said, Man, let me walk you through it. And so I showed him in scripture what it means to be a Christian. And when I was finished with it, I said, Do you understand that message? You do you want to make that decision today to follow Christ? He said, I do. I said, Great, let's pray. So we we we prayed together. I prayed for him first, and then I asked him to repeat some things with me. Then when I finished, I said, Now listen, I'm so glad we did all this. This is very important. But here are the next steps. This doesn't end here. You gotta continue your relationship. You gotta get plugged into church. I said, Roman, I want to baptize you right now, but I want your family to be a part of this. So you need to go home. You need to tell your family, you need to tell your pastor, I want to get baptized to tell the world that I've made this decision to follow Christ. And then grow in your faith, friend. Make sure you're plugged in to a small group. How encouraging it is to see the gospel transforming lives. Amen. It's encouraging. I hope you're encouraged, church. I hope you want to be a part of leading people to the Lord. Point number two is this. To be effective in evangelism, we should have a desire to lead others to salvation in Jesus Christ. We should want to do this. We should be excited about doing this. ⁓ God gives us an example in Scripture of two men, two disciples, who were excited, no matter what penalty was coming their way, to share the good news of Jesus Christ. And so if you want to open your Bibles to Acts 3, we're going to take a look at this. After, I'm sorry, Acts 4 is where we're going. In Acts 3, after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, ⁓ Peter and John healed a man who was lame from birth. And many witnessed this miraculous healing. And because of the gospel messages they were sharing with all the people that were there, there were about five thousand who ⁓ decided to follow Jesus Christ in those moments. But they were facing persecution. Peter and John ⁓ were persecuted by the religious leaders and they were thrown in jail. And ⁓ So here's here's where how they responded. They didn't back down. Let's let's see how they respond in Acts four, eight through twelve. We read this. Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man, by what means he was healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead. By him this man is standing here before you healthy. This Jesus is the stone despised by you builders who has become the cornerstone. There is salvation and no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved. What boldness these men had in front of persecution, religious leaders, being in prison, not knowing what the next step is going to be for them, they're not backing down because they believe this. Is this the kind of faith that y'all have? Do you have that kind of faith that when facing persecution? You know, it could be as simple as as as someone just making fun of Christianity. Do you stand up for what you believe? Do you defend the name of Christ? We need to be quick to do this. There's no doubt in my mind that Peter and John are obviously Christians here, and I hope that I'm able to respond the way Peter and John have in this scenario. The religious leaders, though, they double down to prevent the disciples from talking about Jesus. We read in Acts four seventeen But so this does not spread any further among the people. Let's threaten them against speaking to anyone in this name again. So they call for them and order them not to preach or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, Whether it's right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide. For we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. After threatening them further, they released them, they found a way, no way to punish them. Because the people were all giving glory to God over what had been done. The disciples were unable to stop speaking about the joys of the Lord. And they were moved to make much of the name of Jesus. When I became a father in 2007, my wife and I, we have four boys, Ethan, Jaden, Ryland, and Deacon. Ethan was the first one. By the way, I'm a big fan of action movies. I don't know if you've ever seen Mission Impossible. I love the movies Mission Impossible. And if you know the movies Mission Impossible, there's a character there, Ethan Hunt. And that is actually the name. Don't tell Ethan that is where we really like that name. And said, you what, that'd be a good name for a kid. And it wasn't popular then. But all of a sudden, Ethan's name became popular. So, anyways, that's that's how we came up with Ethan's name. ⁓ but man, when I heard the news that I'm gonna become a father, this was the most exciting thing that that I think had ever happened to me. And I wanted to tell the world. Now, this was before social media. Really? I mean Facebook was around, but it wasn't really around. It wasn't like you're pulling out your phone all the time and taking pictures. So how do I tell people? I'm face to face. Anybody that's asking me, Hey you doing? Hey, I'll tell you how I'm doing. I'm about to be a father, and I'm excited about it. I would call people and and I think I'd texted a little bit. You know, texting was kind of a thing then, but man, I was excited to be a father. I bring that up because we should have that same excitement about telling others about Christ, about helping them figure out, hey, I'm gonna help you figure out, not To go to hell. There's a way. God has provided a way for you not to experience hell, and that's through Jesus. Let me tell you about it. And so when we have these moments, when they come up, when when you see them develop right in front of your eyes, we should be excited about it and want to do it. Amen? We should. When we stop and think about what Jesus did for us, it should move us to do something good. Our Savior spent his ministry on earth performing many miracles and showing us how to obey and love others. He was without sin, and yet he was brutally beaten, scourged, a crown of thorns wedged on his head, carried his own heavy cross to Golgotha, had nails driven in his hands and feet, and left to die between two thieves on a cross. Our Savior died, so you wouldn't have to. He gave his life for you. He gave his life for the world. And that is worth telling. That is worth telling. We should be quick. It it could even be a a quick message of I remember When I first started coming to church here, I was listening to Pastor Rusty and I would try to, you know, tell him, Hey, you're doing a good job. He would always say, Praise God, praise God, praise God. And I started adapting that into my own life. I would try to use praise God. And the reason I would do that is because it would take the attention off of me and we would put it on God and we would introduce him into any conversation that I'm having. And then it would be an easy segue into, hey, do you know about God? Where do you go to church? Asking simple questions about that. So there are different ways that we can actually start those conversations. There's no doubt the Bible says we're supposed to go and make disciples. We read this in the Great Commission, as you know, in Matthew 18, ⁓ I'm sorry, Matthew 28, 19 through 20, Jesus said this: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age. Disciple means learner. We need to learn the ways of Jesus. We need to learn what ⁓ God wants us to do, and then we need to take that same message and share that to make other disciples around us. The Bible says we are to go, so we have to go. Point number three is this, friends. To be effective in evangelism, we need to be ready to communicate with anyone at any moment. Are you ready to do that? If I were to pull you to the side right now and say, show me, tell me, what does it look like? How do I become a Christian? Are you able to communicate that in an effective way? Well, before we look at these tools that I'm going share with you, you already have, if you're a Christian, if you believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, you already have the biggest weapon that you'll ever need. You know what that weapon is? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit living within you. Fifty percent of your job is to show up and the rest of the work is done by the Holy Spirit to let him do the work. ⁓ that percentage is probably not right. But just show up. You know, just show up to tell somebody about God. And the Holy Spirit will work through you. ⁓ One thing we we need to be careful to do that we don't do it often enough, you know that we're in spiritual warfare. And whenever you're intending to go out and witness, it's important that we stop and pray and ask the Lord to protect us and give us strength and and and give us what we need to communicate clearly. I'll never forget one time ⁓ I was in ⁓ Fredericksburg, Virginia, and I was filming a project for SBC V, the Southern Baptist Convention of Virginia. And we were down some alleyway working on a project about evangelism. We were interviewing people. And as I was setting up for an interview, I saw this man, like he was on a mission, jet around a corner and start like coming right at me. And I could tell I could just sense in my spirit that something wasn't right. And so I kind of I went ahead and prayed before he got there, because I knew something was coming. And he came right up to my face and he said, What are you doing? I didn't know him from Adam. He didn't know me from Adam. And I and he had nothing to do with anything that was happening there. And I very quickly acknowledged that I needed God's power. So I just quickly said, I'm here to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Do you want to know about him? And immediately he starts backing up and ⁓ in a defense mode. And I could just tell that this was a spiritual warfare that was happening between me and this man. ⁓ I share that to say we have to be prayed up and we need to be read up. We need to spend time in prayer and ask God to give us what we need to share the good news, but also we need to know God's word. We need to be reading God's word. We need to understand what He's trying to tell us every day and work through us in our lives. So expect spiritual warfare and then pray for opportunities for you to share the good news. at the America's 250th Anapomatics, a great event, had a great time there, and we had the evangelism tent set up. The outreach ministry was there. And I know John McSweeney was leading the team there to ⁓ share the good news with people. And I I was busy running around. I I wanted to I wanted to have something too, John. I wanted to share the good news with somebody. And so I I was hoping that I would have a moment. And I met this lady, her name is Annie, and ⁓ she was like the first in line to get those ⁓ pork rinds. Do y'all like those pork rinds that I'm talking about? The stuff I think it stops your heart if you eat too many of them. I just ate one of them. And so I said hi to her and she said ⁓ You want one? was like, I'd love one. So I ate me a pork rind and and in my head I was just kind of thinking, ha I'd like to communicate the gospel with her. And I started thinking about it was just so hot that day. It was hot as fire, you know? It was just so hot. And I was I was thinking, gosh, I'm so glad that I'm not going to hell, because I can't imagine how hot it's gonna be in hell. But I'm thinking to myself, I can't share these things with her because that's really gonna throw her off. So let's just point to heaven. And so I said, ⁓ I I said, thank you for sharing this pork pork royal with me. I just curious, what do you think about heaven? She's like, ⁓ I'm going to heaven. I said, You are? I was kind of playing dumb. I was like, well, how how do you think you're getting to heaven? And she said, Well, that's because I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. And I said, Well, amen, sister. I said, Well, that means you're my sister in Christ. And that was just an easy way, right, to share the gospel. I mean, it was an easy encounter because she was a Christian. By what sh I could tell by the way the conversation went. Not all conversations are gonna be that simple. but it's as simple as as beginning some kind of conversation like that. Like have a normal conversation, right? You don't want to show up to someone and just be like, You're going to hell, here's why. You're gonna scare them off, right? You gotta be somewhat natural and and and interested in their life before jumping in something so deep. now as you prepare to evangelize. ⁓ I'm gonna give you a homework assignment this week. ⁓ I want you to know that on our website I spent some time creating a web page that has all of these tools in it. We've already talked about the Holy Spirit, you've got that, okay? But here's some practical tools that you can use this week to get you ready to share the gospel. You ready for ⁓ Great. You're so excited. Here we go. The first one is really simple. Share your story. No one knows your personal testimony. like you do. What you can do is simply this. I I I didn't have I was eleven years old when I got saved, so I didn't really have like a a a rough transformation into I grew up in a Christian family, so it was a little bit easier for me. But you might have a different story. You might have had a rough start. And you can really talk about look look how look how selfish I was in my life before getting to know Christ. And when I made that decision, and you talk about the decision that you made, talk about where you were And what God was doing in your heart that moment, how excited you were to see him change your life. And then talk about how life has looked after that. Look at what God has been doing in my life. I can point to him in so many things. So many things that God's been good to me in. And the fact that I know that I'm going to heaven. And the reason I'm having this conversation with you, friend, is because I want you to go to heaven. And here's what you have to do. And you walk them through your story. Your testimony is very powerful. People relate to stories. People relate to ⁓ pains. People relate. Relate to successes and and they want to hear that. They want to hear something real out of you. You don't have to make anything up. Just be real. Share your story. So that's one way you can share the gospel. And then, of course, make sure you point them to the Bible and a Bible-believing church. The next one is the gospel wheel. Do we have any Iwana people in here? That should sound familiar to you. No Iwana people in here. ⁓ I see a hand back there. Okay. ⁓ So in Iwana, I I love Iwana. I think Iwana is an amazing ministry to point people to Scripture, memorizing Scripture. And actually, because of the gospel will and being in Iwana when I served years ago, this helped me with my foundate foundational scriptures that I use when I go and share the gospel with people. So let's take a look at this ⁓ gospel wheel. ⁓ this points out the urgency of sharing the gospel. ⁓ we read in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 4, for what I received. I pass on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he ⁓ was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The gospel is about two characters, God and man. God is loving, John three, sixteen says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. And God is holy. Revelation 4 8b. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is. To come. So that's God's character. Then you have man's character. Man's character is not good. We are all sinners. Romans 3 23 says this: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And sin is bad and deserves death. Romans 6 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel is about two actions: Christ's action on the cross, and then our action to trust. God's action was that he sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Romans 5.8 says, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners. Christ died for us. And the only action for us is to trust in Jesus. Acts 16 31 says, they replied, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. So there you go. The gospel will. If that's something you're interested, I'm sure Mr. Chris Builton with Iwana could probably have something printed out for you. But at the very least, you can go to the website, you'll find the wheel there, and you'll find a link to the Iwana ⁓ website as well to find even more resources. So I gave you guys plenty of things to work with there. Here's a third thing I want to share with you. It's called Three Circles. The North American Mission Board, we partner with them through the Southern Baptist Convention of Virginia, ⁓ and they are responsible for planning churches in North America. They're responsible for sin relief ⁓ in times of disaster relief, but they also have a big arm for evangelism. And so they've created this evangelism tool called the Three Circles. You can easily download this on your phone. You can ⁓ print out resources. You can even have a little bracelet if you want to walk around and show the same thing of the three circles on your arm. But here's how this works. It starts with the first circle showing God's perfect design at the beginning of creation. The first arrow shows how humanity chose sin and rebellion against God. And the second circle ⁓ shows how when we left God's plan that it left us broken with pain, suffering. Empty pursuits and strained relationships. The third circle shows that the only real solution is Jesus through the gospel message. And to get there, we see the second arrow to repent and believe. The third arrow shows that when someone surrenders to Jesus, their relationship is restored. The Holy Spirit empowers them to recover their purpose and pursue God. So those are the three circles. So that might be something that you're also interested in. Here's the fourth thing. That thing is very fascinating, that I think you'll like. And this is called the Gospel Coach. So the North American Mission Board also created this gospel coach. It's an AI tool. Now, Pastor Rusty just talked about AI in this place, and ⁓ there are some good tools out there that actually support the message of the gospel. And this is one of them. This is thing, this thing right here is very fascinating. So it if you wanted to have practice on someone, but you were scared to do it because of their reaction, because you're not quite ready yet. You need to go try this thing, okay? ⁓ so you'll go to our website, you'll click the link that's there for this NAM tool. Here's what you're gonna do when you go there. It's it's it's very much like ChatGPT. If you've ever gone to ChatGPT, you'll put something in and then it'll respond with something, you can respond back, and it'll kind of go back and forth. Almost like a dialogue, same thing here. What you'll do is you'll go there and you'll choose the difficulty level. ⁓ I was kind of a pansy when I tried this, and I did the easy one because I was scared to see what they were gonna throw at me. But even the easy one, I was I was a little bit challenged. I was like, okay, maybe I'm not quite ready for this. I need a little more practice. ⁓ and then you get to choose a conversation partner from the list. And the conversation partners are these the latter-day saints, the Mormons, the Muslims, atheists, agnostic, Jehovah's Witness, Hindu, Jewish person, or you can do like me and choose, surprise me. And so then you have someone of belief of one of these things, and you're having a dialogue with them. So in my test, I was randomly chosen atheist, and the person's name was Tyler. Okay? So to make this very real for you, here's a scene they set up. You're sitting at a local coffee shop studying your Bible and preparing for a church small group. Tyler, a friendly college student you recognize from around town, notices your Bible and sits at the table next to you. After a few minutes, Tyler glances over and smiles. Tyler says, Hey, I notice you've got a Bible. Are you like really religious? I've always been kind of curious about what makes people want to read it so much, especially since I don't really believe in any of that stuff. What's it like being a Christian? He leans forward with genuine interest, his body language open and relaxed. And so I had this back and forth dialogue with this atheist, Tyler, who, of course, is a computer model, but the computer model understands what an atheist believes, and so everything that I'm Throwing at the ⁓ atheist, they're kind of coming back with in a kind way, well tell me why you believe this or why you believe that, or I don't think God really exists. How do you know he exists? And so it really makes you think, Man, how do I answer in a nice, compassionate way to point them to Jesus? I'll share I've shared success stories with you. I'll share a failed story with you, and I and I'm ashamed of this. I was a young adult. married, I think we had one or two kids at the time, and I was speaking with ⁓ a Catholic. And I really wanted this Catholic to get saved. I I didn't think that this Catholic understood that ⁓ Jesus Christ ⁓ paid for their sins and you only had to go through Jesus Christ to be saved and and all the things. And I was working really hard in that conversation to push that fact. And by the end of that conversation, it became combative. To the point that they didn't want to hear anything else I had to say. And I realized through that failed attempt, man, I was not ready for that. I I did not come in a compassionate way. This is not what God intends. God wants us in a loving way to show them there's a better way to understand the gospel message. So I just encourage you with that. There are times when we're gonna fail. And we learn from our mistakes. We know that. We're big boys and girls in here. But these tools Can better prepare you for that next conversation that you have. Would you agree? I hope it does. I hope you check it out. Here's your homework assignment. This week, one person. I'm just asking for one person for you to share the gospel with. Perhaps you spend some time today to read some scripture. Perhaps you spend some time today to go through these tools that have been given to you. But your homework assignment is to share the gospel. Why? Not because Ishmael tells you to, because God tells you to. And do it in a compassionate way. Don't have a failed story like me. Do it in a compassionate way. And tell people you're doing it because you love ⁓ And you want them to experience heaven with you. We want to celebrate heaven with you when we leave this earth one day. And God is so good. We serve such a good God. There's so many good things we can talk about. ⁓ don't overwork it in your mind. Trust the Holy Spirit. Go make some disciples today. Well, friends, we certainly be need to be obedient to God's word. We certainly need to do what God asked us to do. You might be here today and you you like the message, maybe, ⁓ but you can't quite understand it because you've never made the decision to follow Christ. Perhaps you'll make the same decision today that that young lady made in the 930 service. Today is a great day to do it. I will show you in the Bible what it takes what it makes what it takes for you to be a Christian. We've already gone through really what it looks like. And so why don't you make that decision today and then tell people about it. I can't wait to see what God does with this through you. can you imagine what Appomattox, Lynchburg, Farmville would be like if we were so excited and active in telling people about Christ? It'd be a different place, right? It really would be a different place. And man, we probably wouldn't have a seat available in this room, you know, because so many people want to come and learn and grow in their faith and and and with Jesus Christ. And so why don't you do that this week, okay? Will you do that? Will you share the gospel with somebody? I'll pray for you, okay? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for who you are. We thank you for loving us so much that even, Lord, in our sin, you've forgiven us. You gave your only son, Jesus, to die for us. And Father, really, when we look at the whole scheme of things, we don't have to do that much. We really don't. You ask us to make this to make disciples. And we just need to go. We need to trust that you're gonna work through us through your Holy Spirit to point people to you. And Father, sometimes our pride gets in the way, sometimes our our lack of of confidence. Maybe we think we have the inability to want to share. Maybe we just don't know the Bible enough. And that's a valid concern. So, Father, I just pray this week that we would just apply this to our lives, that we would desire to want to know you better, that we would desire to want to tell people about you. And Father, we just want to see people get saved. We want to see people, lots of people in heaven. Thanks to you. And so Father, we do all this to glorify your name, not our name. And so Father, we just need your strength. We need your wisdom. And I pray for all that, Lord. I pray for every family represented here in our church. Lord, you give them what they need so they can be obedient to your word. Father, we love you. We ask this the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.