C (3:23)

And did it say, for the equipping?

B (3:25)

For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry?

C (3:29)

Yeah. So this reminds me of a Brethren saying, this man came to a Plymouth Brethren Church, and they have a time of silence before where people can kind of prepare their hearts for the service. And this man, who wasn't Plymouth Brethren, turned to the man next to him and quietly said, when does the service begin? And the man looked over at him and said, the service begins when the meeting is over. And there's a lot of truth in that, in that we are designed in the church service to learn about how to serve Christ more effectively in both evangelism and discipleship. And then we go out into the world and we evangelize people and we disciple people. Another passage I think of related to the purpose of the local church is Hebrews 10. That's the one where the author of Hebrews encourages us not to miss church. What does he say there, Sam, in Hebrews 10, 23, 24, 25.

B (4:36)

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another. And so much the more, as you see the day approaching.

C (4:53)

Yeah. And the day there refers to the second coming of Christ and the judgment seat of Christ. And the point is, we're encouraging one another in the local church. And so the purpose of our gathering is to be equipped and to be encouraged. It's also a time, of course, for prayer. In First Timothy 2, we're to be praying for kings and all the government officials and all those who are in authority over us. But the purpose of the worship service is not evangelism. In fact, the case can be made that the unbeliever who comes to church, at least in the early church, they would often be positioned off to the side and they would either stand or they would set an area designated for unbelievers. And they were not to take part in the Lord's Supper meeting, that sort of thing. But I remember when I was At Dallas Seminary, we had a class discussion after we wrote papers on justification by faith alone. This was a Greek class going through the Book of Romans. And we had written this paper, and we were talking about evangelism. One of the students raised the point, well, what are we going to do when we go out and become pastors? How are we going to evangelize the people that visit, the people in our congregations, etc. And I had just come off four years on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, where our primary purpose was evangelism, right? We would evangelize students now. We would disciple. We tried to start action groups, and we would disciple them as well. But evangelism was a huge part of what we did. I remember this one student said, well, you know, I don't have the gift of evangelism. And so he said, I won't be evangelizing. He said, that's going to be the job of the people who have the gift of evangelism who are in my church. And I kind of chuckled to myself because I thought, I wonder if he feels the same way about the gift of giving. Let's see. No, nobody in the church is going to give anything to the church except those few that have the gift of giving. Or how about the gift of helps? Well, nobody in the church is going to help except those few people who have the gift of helps. And nobody in the church is going to be merciful except for those few who have the gift of mercy.

A (7:18)

It's coming. It'll be here before you know it. What am I talking about? The Grace Evangelical Society's National Conference 2026, May 18th through the 21st at Camp Camp Kopas, an absolutely beautiful campground in North Texas, right on the lake with lots of recreation, great food, a great place to stay, wonderful fellowship and wonderful free Grace Bible teaching Information and online registration now@faithalone.org events first timers waive registration fees. Faithalone.org events I remember what Dr. Ryrie said.

C (7:55)

He said, well, although we only have one or maybe a few of the gifts, we're called to do all of the gifts. In other words, if I don't have the gift of teaching, I'm still to teach my children the word of God. I'm still to teach those who are open in my family or in my neighborhood or whatever. If I don't have the gift of evangelism, I'm still to evangelize. In fact, remember that Paul told Timothy to do the work of an evangelist. He didn't tell Timothy, since you're an evangelist. Evangelize. He said, do the work of an evangelist. And evidently the purpose of the evangelist is to help the other people be more effective in evangelism. Right. To equip them to be better at evangelism. And we only have one person that I can recall in the New Testament who's called an evangelist. That was Philip. In Acts, chapter 8, he first evangelizes this Ethiopian eunuch who's going back from Jerusalem to North Africa. And then he goes on to Samaria and evangelizes a group of people in Samaria. And he's called Philip the Evangelist. But aside from that, we don't have anybody else that's called that. So I would say, look, yes, there are people who have the gift of evangelism, but their purpose isn't to go around to the local church and evangelize all the people in the local church. Presumably, the people in your local church should be believers, except for those who visit. But the purpose of the evangelist is to train the people in the church to be more effective at evangelism. It's a huge mistake to think my whole reason to be left here on earth is to evangelize. You ever heard that one, Sam?

B (9:38)

Yeah.

C (9:38)

The purpose of believers on earth is to glorify God. And yes, that includes evangelism. But that's not our only purpose. If at the judgment seat of Christ, you or I are found to be great evangelists. But we were walking in the darkness and we were not confessing our sins, that would not be a good thing. Of course, I don't think there's any such person. But let's say a person was a great evangelist, but a terrible husband, terrible father, a terrible neighbor, a really grumpy person. But they were good at evangelism. Well, that's great. That one area of their life is great, but the rest of it, not so good. So we're called to be believers who are glorifying God in all areas.

B (10:25)

Yeah. I mean, if we're called to be like Christ. If you look at the four Gospels, the Gospel of John, Christ did a lot of evangelism, but the other three Gospels, he did a lot of other things. A lot of teaching and good works and disciple making. So if we want to have a full experience of being as Christlike as possible, then evangelism, I think, is an important part. But it's only a part. And I think what you were saying about the church's role is accurate, that church service, a worship service, is not really meant to be evangelistic. But that part of equipping the saints is equipping your congregation with the ability to evangelize, even if they don't necessarily have the gift. We should all be evangelists, but we should also be teachers and preachers and fathers and everything.

C (11:15)

So, yeah, I've got two other quick points. Number one, when we evangelize, the crucial thing is that we're clear. We need to make sure we're sharing the promise of life to those who believe, not to those who commit, to those who turn from their sins for those who promise to serve God or promise to follow just to those who believe in Jesus. Another thing is I think it's important that whoever is preaching in the local church does so verse by verse, preaching the whole counsel of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And as you come to passages that deal with the promise of life, of course you're going to make that clear in your congregation. But we don't just routinely say, every week I'm going to be going ahead and making my message evangelistic or clarifying the promise of life when it comes up. I do on others. I might mention that, but it's not something I have to do every week. Well, I would encourage all of you to be people who share the simple and clear message of the promise of eternal life that can never be lost to all who believe in Jesus. It's a wonderful message, but it's not all of our lives. It's an important part of our lives. And in the meantime, let's keep grace in focus.

A (12:35)

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