We shared with you over the last several weeks just as God has a purpose for your life God has a purpose for His church. Those purposes are identical. The first purpose we learned was worship. That is how the church glorifies. The second purpose is fellowship. That is how the church gains. The third purpose is discipleship. That is how the church grows. The fourth purpose is ministry. That is how the church gives.

All these purposes have something in common and that is - we will continue in some ways to fulfill each of those purposes for ever and ever in eternity. Worship doesn't stop in heaven. Fellowship doesn't stop in heaven. Discipleship doesn't stop in heaven. Ministry doesn't stop in heaven. Even after we die, we will continue to fulfill those purposes in our lives.

The last purpose, the purpose we are going to talk about today is unique in this respect - it can only be accomplished here. It can only be accomplished now and once we die, this purpose will end. This purpose is what we call evangelism or if you look at the bases - home plate is mission. You were made for a mission. Jesus said in John 17:18, "In the same way you gave me a mission in the world, I give them [the church] a mission in the world." (John 17:18, MSG)

Last week, I talked about how you need a ministry in the church. Today, I want you to know that you need a mission in the world. God has given us a ministry, primarily to believers, but has also given us a mission to unbelievers.

What is that mission? It is the same mission Jesus had. In John 20:21 Jesus said, "As the Father has sent Me I also send you." (John 20:21, NASB)

Why did the Father send Jesus? Jesus himself said, "And I the Son of Man, have come to seek and to save those who are lost." (Luke 19:10, NLT)

Now, when you put all of this together here is what we learned. The mission that Jesus had while on earth in His body is now the mission we have on earth in our body, because we are now, His body. What He did in His physical body, we are to continue as His spiritual body. What is that mission? Introducing people to God.

II Corinthians 5:18 says, "Christ changed us from enemies into His friends and gave us the task of making others His friends also." (II Corinthians 5:18, TEV)

Let me tell you how important this mission is. It is so important that if you fail to fulfill this mission, you will have wasted a big part of the life that God gave you. The Apostle Paul put it this way, "My life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus - the work of telling others the Good News about God's wonderful kindness and love." (Acts 20:24, NLT)

There are primarily two ways that this purpose is accomplished. One is through what we call - missions and one is through what we call evangelism. Here is the difference between the two. Missions is reaching people for Christ who most likely will never be assimilated in the life of your church. This could be people in prison. It could be people in another state or people around the world.

For example, one of our mission ministries that we support is Touching Lives. We have people who call in to pray to receive Christ on Touching Lives every single week from all over the world who will never be assimilated into the life of our church. Just two weeks ago, I got this email from a medical doctor in Durbin, South Africa. He said, " I am a 55 year old medical doctor from Durbin, South Africa, and Touching Lives airs on our satellite network on Sundays at 5:30am in the morning (now that guy is a real fan!) My spiritual life has been greatly uplifted by the anointed messages which are delivered so adeptly and I want to send my deepest, heartfelt appreciation to Dr. Merritt and his church and let them know that his sermons have touched the life of at least one person in this part of the world.

Next month, we will be devoting two Sundays to our first missions conference. We are calling it "Global Expedition 2005", March 13th and March 20th. At that time, we are going to be introducing to you, our mission strategy for the year. You are going to have an opportunity to participate both in local missions, national missions and world missions.

My focus today is on evangelism. Once I learned that God has a purpose for my life, I am in turn to begin to tell other people that God has a purpose for their life. The simple word for sharing that good news is the word - evangelism. I know that word can scare many people, but if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have three things in your possession right now that can help you fulfill this purpose and this mission that God has given to you.

I. I Have A Savior I Should Declare To Others

You know one of the biggest helps I've ever received in my life and many of you have received the same help - is when your friends recommend to you a good doctor. Right after Teresa and I got engaged, I literally overnight developed severe back pain which increasingly got worse even after we got married. The pain was so excruciating that I was going on literally two hours of sleep a night.

Over a period of nine months, I went to an M.D., then a chiropractor, then an osteopath, and then to an orthopedic doctor. Nobody could find my problem and it was getting increasingly worse.

I was finally recommended to a neurosurgeon, who after a 10 second examination, pinpointed my problem and said some of the greatest words I have ever heard in my life, "Son, you have a ruptured disc and I am going to take care of your problem." Three days later, he operated on me, removed that disc, and I have never had any back pain since then.

From that moment on, whenever I found anyone with back trouble, do you know what I did? I gave a strong, passionate, enthusiastic recommendation of Dr. Barnett, because I knew what Dr. Barnett had done for me. I had a doctor I could now share with people who were hurting, just like I was.

There was a time in my life that sin was killing me. My sin had separated me from God and I needed forgiveness. When Jesus Christ came into my life and cleansed me and forgave me of all of my sins and I experienced what He could do for me, though it took me years to realize it, I realized that I had both an opportunity and a responsibility to let other people know that what Jesus did for me, He could do for them.

In the 8th chapter of Luke there is a story of a man that Jesus healed of a serious disease. After Jesus healed him, this man wanted to travel with Jesus and spend time with Jesus. I want you to listen to what Jesus said to this man instead, "Go back home and tell people how much God has done for you. So the man went all over town telling them how much Jesus had done for him." (Luke 8:39, NCV)

That is exactly what God wants us to do. We are giving you a tool today that is going to make it so easy for you to begin to get into the habit of helping move people down their spiritual track toward a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

II. I Have A Soul That Should Care For Others

You may be sitting there thinking to yourself, why should i bother sharing a savior with this world? Why should I bother taking the time to do this? Why should I make the effort? I will tell you why. It is the very reason that your heart is still beating and your lungs are still breathing. It is the reason that God has left you on this planet as a part of His family. Has it ever occurred to you that there are three things you can never do in heaven? You can have fun in heaven. You can relax in heaven. You can laugh in heaven. You can sing in heaven. You can fellowship in heaven. You can worship in heaven, but there are three things you cannot do in heaven.

First of all, you cannot sin in heaven. There is no sin in heaven. You will be absolutely perfect in heaven. I am so grateful that I can no longer be tempted with M&M peanuts in heaven! In fact, I am so grateful that with a perfect body, I can eat all I want.

There is something else you can never, ever do again once you get to heaven. You cannot give financially to God work. I realize that will make some of you want to go to heaven very quickly, but there are no offering baskets in heaven. There are no capital campaigns in heaven. There are no budgets in heaven. There is no need for tithes and offerings in heaven.

The other thing you never can do again once you get to heaven is share Jesus Christ with people who do not know Him. The reason why Jesus has left us alive on this earth is so we can tell others that God can do for them what He has done for us.

II Peter 3:9 says, "God does not want anyone to be lost, but he wants all people to change their hearts and lives!" (II Peter 3:9, NCV)

That ought to be the heart you have for others. That ought to be the heart you have for neighbors and friends who do not know God. You ought to say everyday, "I do not want anyone to be lost. I want my neighbors to change their hearts and lives through the Jesus Christ that I know."

If we really want God's blessing on us, we had better care about what God cares about. Do you know what God cares about more than anything else? PEOPLE. God cares about people who do not know Him and do not love Him. That means everybody, not just one race of people, but all races, not just the rich people, but the poor people, not the people who are like us, but the people who are not like us.

If you want to know why this church was started and if you want to know why we do a lot of the things we do and why things are so different in so many ways than what some of you are custom to is because we are determined to reach the unchurched. We are determined to reach people while they are young, because that is when they are most open to the Gospel of Christ.

I want to share with you an email that I got from a man back when we were meeting in the high school, about eight months ago. It is humorous, but it makes my point. "I attended a new church yesterday. It is being pastored by a very good friend of mine, who had been my pastor for fifteen years at another church. He has changed direction and decided to try and reach primarily young people and the service was geared more towards them. The first thing I noticed when I drove into the parking lot was that the only person who had a tie on was me. Everyone was dressed very casual. I reluctantly pulled off my tie, mumbling something to the effect that it just doesn't seem right not to wear a tie to church. My son, who is half my age, stated he liked it, because it was comfortable. When I walked in, I immediately began to wonder where I was. Musical instruments including a nice looking Stratocaster, drums, keyboard, bass, Congo drums, etc., adorned the stage with some awesome looking speakers on ten-foot stands. Somehow, this just doesn't seem right."

"The pastor spied me and came over. I couldn't believe it, no cufflinks, no starched cuffs, no tie, just casual dress. After exchanging pleasantries, he asked why I was not in Florida and I jokingly responded that I heard he was starting a cult and I wanted to see it first-hand. He laughed, but looked me in the eye and stated he was still preaching the Word of God. After he left, I told my wife that if she saw any snakes or someone passing out poison Kool-Aid, we were going for the exits. Frankly, I didn't care for the music, longing for more traditional gospel songs, but the young people did seem to enjoy it. True to his word, the pastor preached a dynamic message about knowing God and how it is the single most important thing in all of our lives. He closed by telling them how to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. The traditional alter call was replaced by giving everyone a little card that contained choices whereby they could check an appropriate box if they wanted to receive Jesus as their Lord, get baptized, join the church, etc. They just dropped it in the offering and it was done. Encouragers were off to the side and available to answer questions, but no one had to walk down in front of anybody to do anything. I told my son that it just doesn't seem right to not have a traditional alter call. My son said he liked this method far better than the traditional church and in fact, had recently joined the church himself, just like that. He beamed "they make it easy for you". The pastor told the congregation that numerous people had accepted the Lord the previous week as further testimony to its effectiveness. When the offering was taken up, the pastor stated that we were going to "pass the basket". Literally, that is what happened! They passed a white basket around for the offering. The "usher" who passed it to me was wearing blue-jeans and his shirt wasn't even tucked in. Arghhhhhh!!!"

"As I left the thought hit me. This church is dead on course for reaching their target audience. Every person I observed seemed to enjoy the service immensely including me…old fuddy-duddys like me might feel a little uncomfortable by doing away with our traditions, but there are plenty of stuffed-shirt churches throughout Atlanta for us to go and worship in a more "traditional" manner if that is our choice. As for me, if I still lived here, I would attend this church and probably start wearing a tai-dye t-shirt and ask to play my Strat in the band. My pastor is right in that if our country is to be saved, we must reach the young people for the Lord. I believe the Lord has shown him a far more effective manner to do it. Personally this experience helped me to better understand the notion that we need different approaches to reach different people for the Lord; Jesus doesn't care how we worship or where. He himself preached while sitting in a boat, in open fields, as well as in the temple. The Bible states that wherever and whenever we gather in His name He is right there with us. As long as the Word of God is preached, right out of the Bible, just like this pastor does it, he can wear a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt as far as I am concerned."

May I be very honest with you? This man "gets" it. He understands. He realizes that we must have a soul that should care for others.

III. I Have A Story I Should Share With Others

The last words Jesus ever said to his followers before He ascended into heaven were these, "You shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth." (Acts 1:8, NASB)

Jesus put Jerusalem first, because that is our immediate area and that is to always be our primary target. We must first reach people right where we live. Then, you should have a local strategy with Judea and a national strategy with Samaria and then a world strategy to the ends of the earth.

Notice that Jesus did not say, "You will be my defense attorney." He didn't say, "You will be my prosecutor." He didn't say, "You will be my sales-person." All he said was, "You will be my witness."

What is a witness? A witness is simply somebody who tells what they have seen, what they have heard and what has happened to them. Guess what? Nobody can be a better witness on your life than you can. Nobody can be a better witness of what God has done in your life than you can.

One of the responsibilities of the church is to make sure that the people of the church have the training and tools they need to be able to carry out their mission effectively. We are going to do that. This year we are going to be sharing with you some strategies we are going to incorporate into this church, both in the marketplace and in your neighborhood to help you to be effective in being used by God to reach people for Him.

I will tell you repeatedly that one of the most effective ways we can reach people is simply to begin to invite unchurched people to church. One of the things that we would like you to begin to do during the week, whether it be on Sunday night or another night of the week, is to begin to invest your life in the lives of your friends and neighbors, so you can get to a point where you can simply invite them to come and see what God is doing here in our church. Let me tell you why this must become a priority with us. This is how people are brought to Jesus Christ and into His church.

• Advertisement - 2%
• Church Programs - 2-3%
• Organized Outreach - 2-4%
• Pastor - 4-6%
• Friends/Relatives - 80-90%

This is the way it primarily happened in the New Testament and it is the way it happens today. I heard a story years ago about how God was in heaven and an angel came up to Him and said, "God, now that Jesus has gone to earth and died for the sins of the world and is back in heaven, how are you going to get that good news out to all the other people on earth? God says, "Well, my plan is to give the good news to my children on earth and ask them to simply share it with other people." The angel says, "What if they don't share it? What is plan b? God says, "There is no plan b." When it comes to accomplishing the greatest mission in this world, there is no plan b. We are it. If we don't do it, it won't get done.

In the next 365 days, 2.4 million Americans will die and most of them will go into eternity without Jesus Christ. In the next 365 days, 54 million people in this world will die and most of them will go into eternity without Jesus Christ. Our mission from God is to accept both the responsibility and seize the opportunity to introduce people to Him.

If you even hesitate about what I am saying -think about this. The eternal salvation of a single soul is more important than anything else you will ever achieve in this life, because only people are going to last forever. We have a mission from God, let's accept it and do it together.