Good morning. It's good to be with you all. My name is Jonathan. I've been with you the last three weeks, or this is the third week.
I serve as a college pastor with our denomination Campus Ministry. It's called Reformed University Fellowship.
But I'm good friends with the pastor of this church, Matthew Capone. He and I were in seminary together.
Actually, my wife met Matthew before I knew Matthew. We go way back with Matthew.
And so he asked me as he's on his break to come to you all and bring the word to you all this morning.
And so that we are in our third week of looking at the topic of evangelism.
Why are we doing this? Why are we spending four weeks studying the topic specifically on Sunday morning?
Well, there's a lovely, there's a quote in your bulletin right next to, on page seven from Kevin DeYoung.
He says, the central plot line of scriptures is about sinners being saved.
Salvation should be the theme of our preaching, the mission of the church, and the priority of our ministry.
We are convinced as a church and as Christians that Christianity is the best and only hope for our world.
That is what we cling to.
We are convinced of that, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.
And that it is our calling and our great privilege to go tell our friends, tell our families, tell our coworkers of what God has done in our world.
And that's very challenging.
If you've ever done this, Andy said at the beginning, it's scary.
If you've ever even tried or if you thought about sharing what you believe as a Christian, it feels invasive.
It feels like you don't, you know, what if they ask a question and I don't know the answer?
What if they don't like me anymore?
What if there's all these things, these fears that we have when we think about evangelism?
And so what we hope to do with the session, your church leaders, myself, we're hoping to give you tools.
Not just guilt you into it, not just exhort you with a theology, but give you words and tools so that as you speak with your friends and your neighbors, for the opportunities to come up to share the only hope, the great hope for our world, which is Jesus Christ and what he has done to save us and to reconcile all things and to fix a broken world.
That's what our, that's what my hope is.
And you guys, I think you've latched onto that the last few weeks.
You've had such great encouragement and questions.
Please keep asking those questions.
If you have more, what my favorite part is when you come up to me and say, Jonathan, you said this and I'm thinking about this relationship.
And that tells me that you're thinking through how do I care for the person that each of you is thinking about right now as we think about the topic of evangelism.
And so please keep it coming.
I'll be with you all next week.
The next week will be the last week.
This week we are looking at the topic of Acts 17.
Acts 17.
So turn in your Bible to Acts 17 or it's in your bulletin.
It's a little bit longer text today.
We're going to start in chapter, I mean, at verse 16.
This is God's word.
Now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him.
And some said, what is this babbler wish to say?
Others said he seems to be preaching of foreign divinities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.
And they took him and brought him to the Oropagus saying, may we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
For you bring some strange things to our ears and we wish to know, therefore, what these things mean.
Now, all the Athenians and foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
Verse 22.
This is God's word.
Would you pray with me?
Lord, as we have come into your house one more time, one more week to worship you, to make you big and beautiful, to recenter our hearts and our attentions from all the things that would distract us and our hearts this week.
We pray that you would send your spirit now to show us to show us to faithfully love and proclaim him and to serve our neighbors.
It's for your name and glory that we pray.
Amen.
All right.
So, in 2005, you've probably heard this before.
In 2005, a famous writer named David Foster Wallace.
David Foster Wallace, generally acknowledged or recognized to be one of the premier literary writers of the 20th, 21st century, delivers a speech at Kenyon College.
Kenyon College, the commencement address.
And this speech has become famous, almost infamous, and the stuff that he says in it throughout, all throughout this speech.
And in this speech, he reflects on the human condition.
And it's a wonderful speech.
I highly recommend that you go read it.
David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College, graduation speech.
But he says something that, in one particular place, it's prophetic.
It's prophetic and it's challenging for our world today.
Because in our world, we often think, well, I don't really worship anything.
And particularly, our non-Christian friends would say, I don't know.
Remember, we've talked at the beginning.
They'd say, I'm really a non.
I would describe myself as not particularly religious.
Or, hey, I grew up in the faith.
But that doesn't really describe me anymore.
David Foster Wallace challenges this in his speech.
It's old, but it still stands.
He says this.
Listen carefully.
He says, everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what to worship.
If you worship money and things, if they are where you really tap into meaning for life,
then you will never have enough and never feel you have enough.
That's the truth.
Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly.
Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb your own fear.
Worship your intellect.
Being seen as smart, and you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud.
Always on the verge of being found out.
Listen to this.
He says, but the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful.
It's that they're unconscious.
It's the default settings.
What is David Foster Wallace saying in this?
This is so important.
He's saying that every human being worships something.
Every human being worships something.
John Calvin, the great Reformed theologian, says this.
He says that the human heart is an idol factory.
That every person generates constantly, all the time, something out there to say,
this is what I'm asking to be my meaning and my purpose and my hope, my value.
This is the default position of every single human heart.
And in 2025, we would say, well, we no longer do this because read this text from Actwood.
We don't make up statues of gold or silver or stone.
We don't do this anymore.
But the impulse behind it, and here's the challenge, is still nonetheless true,
that we set up something to say this is what gives me hope, value, meaning, and purpose.
And what I want to consider today is how every heart worships, how every heart worships,
how idols cannot satisfy our deep needs, and evangelism, evangelism is showing our friends
that reality and how Jesus can and does satisfy them.
I want to consider how every heart worships, how idols cannot satisfy our needs,
and how Jesus is what we truly need and how we must call others to worship him.
And so to do that, we're going to look at three things, three things that I want us to see.
First is the eyes of the evangelist, the eyes of the evangelist.
Second, the heart of the evangelist, the heart of the evangelist.
And third, the words of the evangelist.
The eyes, the heart, and the words of the evangelist.
That's what we'll see today.
So first off, look at the eyes of the evangelist.
Verse 16, Paul is going into Athens.
Athens is the cosmopolitan city of the Roman Empire.
It's a sophisticated, intelligent city.
And look what it says.
He says, now Paul, verse 16, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens,
his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was full of idols.
He sees that the city is full of idols.
He looks around and he sees a city that is covered in idols.
And that word, full of idols, in verse 16, does not cover the depth of what Paul is observing when he looks around.
We would look at that word and say, well, it's full of idols.
The Greek word is stronger.
It literally means smothered.
Smothered in idols.
It's chock full, inundated, loaded with them.
It's loaded with idols, right?
And he says in verse 23, as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship.
He says, I walk through your city and I see all these idols.
All these different things that you are worshiping.
All these different things that they are asking to be their God.
Now, we look at that again and we say, well, that was Athens 2,000 years ago.
I drive down Colorado Springs.
I go to old Colorado City or I go downtown.
I don't see what Paul saw.
I don't see that same city full of stone statues of gold and silver and idols.
But think with me about this.
Remember what David Foster Wallace says.
He says, everybody worships.
Everybody worships.
And while this is important, while you and I may not create in our age, in our moment, physical statues of gold and silver and stone,
we still do emotionally with our resources, our energy, our hope, we still create and set up things in our lives to be the ultimate anchor point of our lives.
The ultimate thing to say, this is what I'm hoping in.
This is what I'm asking to give me value or identity.
Every person is looking for something to give them meaning or something to save them.
And when we look under the hood of our American world or when you start to, and this is what I hope to train you to do today,
look under the hood of your friends' hearts, you'll see this at work.
Think of it this way.
In Athens, an ancient Greek city, go back to your high school classics classes, some of the great gods.
What was Apollos the god of?
Wisdom, knowledge.
Is there some place in our worlds where we highly value those things and say knowledge will save us?
Of course, higher education.
The higher education machine of telling students, I work on a college campus, get a college degree.
This is what makes you important in the world of the market.
Or we tell them, go get a PhD and then you'll actually be intelligent.
Go get more knowledge.
Make sure your grades are good enough.
Your grades are what, you know, college students are obsessed with saying, you know what makes me acceptable?
Is if I have a high enough GPA.
I'm smart enough, right?
Think of another one.
Think of the Greek god of Aphrodite.
What was Aphrodite a goddess of?
She was the goddess of love and beauty and sexual satisfaction.
Now think about our world.
Think about all of our friends who are desperately looking for a romantic partner to satisfy their search for meaning and hope and acceptance.
Think about how people will go from app to app to app, swiping and swiping and swiping,
looking for the next person who will make them feel loved and cherished.
Think about how people will spend days, weeks in front of mirrors and in gyms to make their body look just the right way in front of another person.
Thousands of dollars on surgery and care to look a special way to be beautiful.
How about the Greek god Plutus?
He's the god of money.
Think about how there's this drive within our world to pad your portfolio, to make sure that you have enough or even far beyond what you could ever imagine is enough.
More money, working, always more and more work.
Another hour in the office, another promotion, more and more up the corporate ladder.
So that you are what?
Enough, secure, safe in your money.
Or think about the god of Zeus, the god of power.
How many of us would say, if I just had power in this relationship or if I had power in this piece of my life, I would be content.
All of these things that we are chasing today, that our friends are chasing today, beauty, power, success, romance, independence, autonomy.
All of these are things that we ask to be a god to us, to save us, to deliver us.
This is the impulse of the human heart.
And while we may not be Athens that has physical idols everywhere, our hearts and even our lives are full of idols.
Idolatry is when we begin to emotionally and spiritually look to anything, something other than the god of the Bible, Jesus Christ, to satisfy our wants and needs and desires.
And here's the point.
Paul the evangelist, the eyes of the evangelist, is one who can look around his world, look into the lives of other peoples, and see past their behaviors, see past what they value, and begin to see what are they asking to be ultimate.
What are they asking to give them meaning and purpose and significance in their life?
We must develop the eyes to see through our friends' hobbies and interests and work and see where is the idol in their hearts.
Let me give you an example.
So I have a friend.
I'm a 35-year-old white guy, and I've got a lot of 35-year-old white guys, friends, and all he wants to do is exercise.
And all he wants to do is every free weekend is spend his time in the mountains.
I love spending my time in the mountains.
This one actually strikes close to home to me because if I wasn't a Christian, this is what I would do, right?
Spends all his time in the weekends hiking, climbing, skiing, cycling, all the things, things I love, good things.
And he would ask that thing, those activities, being strong, physically fit, what he is is valuable based on his athletic performance.
How valuable he is to himself and to his friends is how his latest outdoor activity, how fast he did this run, how fast he did this cycling event, right?
That becomes an idol to him.
And his value, his significance, what makes him worthy of taking up space in our universe is his athletic performance.
Another example, I have another friend.
I'm sure this one, you all know this person.
He works all the time.
He works 70-plus hours a week at the expense often of his family and of his friendships.
He's always got his phone right next to him because what if that email comes in that he has to respond to?
And he's thinking constantly about how can I leverage my time to move up the ladder, to increase the sales, to make myself more valuable to this company?
It's the same thing.
He's asking his work to give him purpose and meaning and security and peace.
It's become his idol.
And this can be anything, friends.
It can be romance.
It can be leisure.
It can be romance.
I mean, it can be money.
Our hearts can turn anything in this world into an idol.
If you want help thinking through how to observe this in your friends, there's two books I recommend.
One is called Seculosity.
It's a little made-up word that the author makes for religiosity and secular.
Seculosity by an author's name of David Zahl, Z-A-H-L.
And he explores different ways that we've asked different pieces of our lives, leisure, pleasure, money, romance, to save us.
It's really helpful.
The other one is a book by a man named Tim Keller.
It's called Counterfeit Gods.
I highly recommend those two to you and help you develop what Paul has here, the eyes of the evangelist.
To see past what our friends are doing.
Heck, to see what we're doing.
And say, what am I asking to save me in some other way than the living God?
So it's the first thing to develop is the eyes of the evangelist.
Second is the heart of the evangelist.
The heart of evangelist.
Look again at verse 16.
Now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
Look again.
Notice what it says here.
It says his spirit was provoked within him.
Again, the English translation is not strong enough.
It means almost that he has a spiritual spasm.
He looks around the city and he goes, oh, no.
What is this place that I'm walking in?
He looks around at this city full of people asking anything and everything to give them hope, meaning, and purpose other than Jesus Christ and the God of the Bible.
And he goes, oh, my gosh.
This is terrible.
This is horrible.
It's a contortion of his soul that he feels when he sees this idolatry rampant throughout his world, right?
Think of it this way.
Think of a powerful.
Think of what happens to you when you watch a really well-made documentary movie.
You'll watch a documentary film, and a good documentary can make us feel something strongly, feel it in our gut like we've been punched in the stomach.
You ask a documentary filmmaker, why did you make this documentary?
And they'll say this, to raise awareness.
I want to make people aware of what this thing is that I'm trying to show.
And it rattles our minds.
It's a mixture of anger and sadness and frustration.
We ask, what can I do about this?
What can I do to try and address, to solve the problem that this documentary is raising up?
I'm sure you've experienced this, whatever the topic is.
That's what Paul felt as he walks through Athens.
He sees with the eyes of the evangelist the magnitude of the idols around him, and he has an emotional, visceral response.
He says, this is destructive.
A spasm within him as he sees it.
Now, why does Paul feel this?
Well, there's two reasons.
One, idolatry is, it robs God of his glory.
It robs God of his glory.
Look at verses 24 to 28.
He says, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands.
He is the one who made every human being on earth.
And when you are asking or asking anything other than him to save you or to be your God, you are denying him the glory that he deserves.
I'll say it this way.
Students will often, you know, I'll talk about God being a person who deserves glory, and students go, ugh, does that make God a giant narcissist?
And I say, no, think of it this way.
If my wife, if I was to give the attention to another woman that my wife deserves, it doesn't make my wife selfish because she says, no, I just, no, she deserves that because she's my wife.
And for me to give the attention that is due to her to anyone else robs her of the dignity and the love and the glory that she deserves.
Now, God is the most glorious person in the universe.
God is the most beautiful person in the universe.
And so for us to not worship him robs him of glory.
And Paul sees that and goes, no, this is terrible.
The second reason Paul feels this contortion of his heart is that idolatry is spiritually destructive.
It is spiritually destructive.
Ultimately, it leads to God's judgment.
Verse 30.
In the times of ignorance, God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness.
Idolatry left undealt with, unrepentant of, unchanged, unconverted to worship of the living God leads to God's punishment.
That's the stakes.
That is what we look at our friends and say, I want, I desire you to know the God that I know because this is destructive to you spiritually.
And Paul knew that.
That is why he has a spiritual spasm.
But other than that, even before that happens, idolatry erodes and corrodes the human heart.
It's bad for us.
Several weeks ago, I was talking with a student who has an idol of her grades.
College students, they are asked to perform on an academic level.
You remember this if you went to school.
And so they set these grades up as the thing that makes me valuable is what my GPA is.
And I was meeting with her about this.
And I said, when you ask grades to be your God, I'd helped her see that this is what she was doing.
I said, you're essentially running a gasoline engine on diesel fuel.
It's going to burn the engine up eventually.
It's bad for your heart.
It will distort and corrode and erode your heart.
The idol promises things it cannot deliver.
It promises.
A grade says, if I can get that illustrious 4.0, then I'll be valuable.
But it never measures up.
It never actually satisfies.
And the only thing that an idol actually will deliver is more anxiety and more and more sacrifice.
And more and more disappointment and shame and ultimately despair.
It never gives what we ask it or think it will give us.
It leads to a miserable life.
And Paul sees that in them and he says, oh, we must develop this heart for the lost that Paul has.
When I was in seminary, we had a professor who taught us evangelism and apologetics.
His name was Jerem Bars.
You can look him up.
He actually has a book called The Heart of Evangelism.
And he would describe to us his friends that he was currently sharing the faith with.
As he was teaching his class, he said, I'm meeting with this friend.
And we're talking about Christianity and we're talking about the faith.
And he taught this class every week for decades.
And every time he would share something with us, his eyes would well with tears and he would cry.
And sometimes he would keel over and silently say, I'm sorry.
And he would cry in front of us.
Because this man loved his neighbors.
And he desired for his friends to know Jesus as king and savior.
That's the heart of the evangelist.
That's what Paul has.
And the challenge to us as Christians is, do I feel that way for my non-Christian friends?
Often I fear that we only feel indifference or apathy.
We look and say, well, they're okay.
They're doing their thing.
They're living their life in one way.
And I don't want to intrude.
I don't want to impose my thoughts or beliefs on them.
I don't want to have an awkward conversation.
I don't want to risk our relationship.
I don't want to argue.
Or what if they don't want to hang out with me anymore?
Apathy is not loving.
Indifference is not loving.
Now, that doesn't mean we go banging down their door and do it in a rude or a crude way.
But it does mean that we sense an urgency in our hearts to say, what you are asking to save you cannot save you.
Let me tell you the one who can.
Which leads us to the last and final point, which is the words of the evangelist.
The words of the evangelist.
Looking here at verses 23 through 30.
I've read them.
I'll let you skim over them again.
But what does Paul say?
What does Paul say?
Well, overall, he says, let me tell you about the God that you are seeking to worship.
Let me tell you about the God that you are seeking to worship.
Let me tell you who he really is.
He says, men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious.
We now perceive with our eyes that see idols that our world, our friends, are very religious.
Then he says, where is it?
What you therefore worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
Let me tell you what you are looking for.
He points his audience to the true God.
He says, I see this impulse in you to worship even the unknown God.
And here I am to tell you who he is.
Jesus Christ.
And he tells them it's not idols that will give them meaning, love, or purpose.
But it's God who created them, who knows them, who formed every piece of who they are and who will save them.
He says, we do not create gods, but God created us.
God is not the one, idols cannot save us, but the God who created and knows and loves you can, does, and will save you.
Now, how do we do this?
How do we do this?
Two things I want to share with you.
First, and most easily, you share your story.
You share your Christian story.
Very simple.
Often, I think that we, I feel the pressure when I come to a situation of evangelism to present the whole of Christian faith and defend every component and piece of it in that moment.
And it's too much.
It's too much to accomplish in one conversation or in one relationship.
There's too much to say.
There's too much that I fear that I won't say.
Instead, what I would commend to you is just say this.
Can I share to you why I'm a Christian?
Can I share why I'm a Christian?
Let me share to you why I, Jonathan, am a Christian.
I, Jonathan, grew up in a Christian home.
I professed faith in Christ when I was six.
And I followed Jesus my whole life.
But then when I got to college, I went to college in New York City, a city full of very smart people.
And I fell in love with a girl who I really liked.
And then my senior year of college, after pursuing grades and being really smart in a city full of really smart people, I realized I would never be smart enough.
I'm not good enough.
There's dozens of higher education institutions in New York City that will blow me out of the water.
There's Ivy League.
There's 800,000 college students in New York City.
I'm not smart enough for them.
And at the same time that I realized that, this woman broke up with me.
And it devastated me.
And so here I am feeling not valuable because I'm not smart enough and unloved.
And I was devastated.
And slowly but surely, through dear friends and a good pastor, I began to realize that the God of the Bible loves me even though I'm not the smartest.
And he loves me with an unfailing love that will never cease unconditionally forever.
That's the God I follow.
Would you follow him with me?
Simple as that.
I'm not defending the whole Christian faith.
I'm saying that why I follow Jesus.
Would you follow him too?
Paul does this over and over and over again in his letters.
He says, I was, he tells his story.
He says, I was the best Pharisee I knew.
I kept all the rules.
I was the best one.
And then one day, Jesus literally blew me off a saddle and said, it's not enough.
And I realized that.
And now I see that I am content and sufficient being known by Jesus.
And that's all.
Would you follow him with me?
Share your story of why and how God loves you.
And say, I think he can do the same for you.
Simple as that.
The words of the evangelist is to share your story.
Now, the second thing, this is a little bit more challenging, but I think it's more effective.
Pay attention here.
We want to tunnel underneath the idol to the felt need.
To the felt need that our friends are asking the idol to do for them.
We want to tunnel underneath the idol to explore what is the felt need that our friends are asking the idol to do with them.
What is it that they think the idol will provide for them?
Paul looks at a city that is smothered in idol and even sees one to the unknown God.
But Athens had a felt need that they had to make sure that all their bases were covered.
What if there's some God out there and we're not giving him worship and he doesn't take care of us?
He doesn't protect us.
He doesn't provide for us.
Well, that's a scary thought.
So let's just set up some idol and say, if you're out there, unknown God, here's our worship for you.
And Paul tunnels underneath that and says, let me tell you who that true God is.
The God that you're looking for, I proclaim to you.
What we want to do is a bit of spiritual spelunking and to explore the need underneath our friends' idols.
You can go to your friend and say, hey, you think too much about your bank account.
And they'll say, okay, maybe.
But what you want to try to do is to say, and I wonder why.
You think too much about exercise and I wonder why.
Get pastorally, evangelistically curious with them.
I wonder why you think this idol will satisfy your heart.
And try to show them that there is a need behind or underneath the idol.
And here's a hint.
Almost every single time, underneath and beneath the idol is a need to be either secure or loved.
It's a need to be accepted or safe.
That is what we are asking idols to do for us.
To make us either safe or valuable.
Secure or cherishable.
And we think, our friends think, that if I make enough money, I'll be safe.
Or if I meet the right romantic partner, I will be loved.
That's what we're asking an idol to do.
Last week, I met with a friend who wants to make a ton of money.
He's in college and he's owned several businesses that he started as a college student because he wants to make a ton of money.
And he's pretty good at it.
He's pretty good at making a lot of money.
And as we're talking, I said, you know, he knows, he's like, I want to make money.
And he lets his faith lapse because of that.
He's a Christian.
But he's not a strong Christian.
And I asked him, I said, I wonder why you feel the need to make all this money.
I wonder why.
And as we talked, we realized that basically, he grew up really poor.
And now he has the opportunity to use his intelligence and his hard work to make a bunch of money so that he doesn't have to feel poor anymore.
Because he felt really scared when he was poor growing up.
And he wanted to feel safe.
And he thought that money would make him feel safe.
That's where evangelism gets.
This is where the gospel gets good, friends.
Because we get to say, man, money is never going to be safe.
Look at the past history of the U.S. economy.
People can lose fortunes in hours.
It's never, you are never safe with money.
It can evaporate in a moment.
But you know who is safe?
Jesus.
He's perfectly safe.
How do the Psalms describe the God of the Bible?
Over and over again, he's a rock.
He's a refuge.
He's a fortress.
The security that you are asking money to provide, Jesus provides.
Jesus makes us safe.
Think about our friends who are looking to romance.
I just need someone to make me feel loved.
And so I'll keep moving from partner to partner.
What do we get to say?
No human's ever going to be able to do that.
But underneath that is a desire to feel loved.
Jesus loves you unconditionally.
Not based on your performance.
Not based on how good you are.
Not based on how beautiful you are.
But based on his righteousness given to you.
And it's only by faith.
We help our friends see that idols can never save them.
Whatever it is, it's never going to satisfy their heart.
But there's a felt need buried underneath the idol that God can satisfy in spades.
A false God will always disappoint you.
Money cannot make you happy.
Romance cannot make you happy.
Status, outdoor experiences.
None of these things will provide the safety or the enduring love that you are looking for.
They'll give you a candy rush that feels so good when it's happening.
But it leaves you starving at the end.
We get to show them that God will satisfy.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
And do you remember what I said last week?
This is so important.
When you do that, you are no longer just showing them that Christianity is true.
Which it is.
But they're not interested in.
We get to show them that Christianity is good.
That our God is good.
That he satisfies the desires and longings of the heart.
So first, share your story.
This is why I'm a Christian.
Would you follow Jesus with me?
But then tunnel underneath the idol to find the felt need and show them that Jesus meets that need.
And again, it's probably safety or security.
Love or acceptance.
What does this passage show us?
First, it tells us that we must develop the eyes of the evangelist.
Look around our world.
Look into the hearts and lives of our friends and see where are they looking for something to satisfy you.
If you're here today and you're exploring Christianity, you're not a Christian, I would ask you, what are you asking to save you?
What are you asking to give you meaning, purpose, value, identity to make you feel safe and loved?
You see, it won't measure up.
It can't.
The second thing is to develop the heart of the evangelist.
It's compassion, a yearning for them to know Jesus as their king and savior.
And lastly, the words of the evangelist to share your story of why you are a Christian.
And then to set them up to see that what they're asking an idol to do, it can't do it.
But God does and can and will and always has been that salvation.
That God who created us and saves us and loves us.
That's evangelism.
Would you pray with me?
Jesus, thank you that you are our God, that you created us as the confession stated, as we've confessed earlier, that you've saved us and that you will bring us to you again.
Father, as we seek to faithfully witness to these truths, to our friends and neighbors, would you give us your words to make it good, to make it compelling?
And would your spirit be working in the minds of every person that we're thinking of right now?
That they would know, that they would taste and see that you are God and that they would worship you.
It's in Jesus' name that we pray.
Amen.