Going with the Gospel

On the first Lord’s Day in June I plan to begin preaching through the wonderful letter of Paul to the Ephesians. I absolutely love the book of Ephesians. It is such a powerful and comprehensive epistle. It is full of encouragement and edification. It is challenging and it is fully relevant to the lives of believers in the 21st Century. As one who holds to the doctrines of grace [or the five points of Calvinism], I am always excited that Ephesians begins with a grand and glorious treatment of God’s sovereignty in the matter of salvation. In the first chapter of that letter, Paul writes of God’s election, predestination, and adoption of all who would ever be saved. He makes it clear that this work of God took place before creation and that it redounds to the glory and honor of God Himself. I always find great encouragement in those Biblical truths.

As a Calvinist, I am very much aware that one of the charges that is frequently made against Calvinists is that we are not evangelistic. There is a notion that somehow holding to sound doctrine in the area of soteriology eliminates the need for evangelism or cancels out God’s call to evangelize. Sadly, this charge proves to be all too true in far too many cases. I have been preaching a series of sermons to the wonderful congregation of Sovereign Grace Bible Chapel where I serve as Pastor-Teacher on the matter of evangelism and our call to take the gospel to those who are unsaved. A recent visitor to our church who has a Dutch Reformed background made it abundantly clear to me that he was no fan of such a message. In fact, he was far more concerned over the fact that I used the term "gee" in my sermon than he was with the challenge to be evangelistic. Let me be clear, I should not have used the term "gee," but the gentleman’s response reminded me of what Jesus said about straining out a gnat in order to swallow a camel. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is all too common among those who are reformed or Calvinistic. Little if any thought is given to evangelism, but we readily embrace the role of word police.

If we who are Calvinistic really believe what Paul wrote in Ephesians 1, we should have great encouragement in the matter of evangelism. We are told in verse 4 that God chose us [believers] in Christ before the foundation of the world. What could possibly be more reassuring than to know that as we go out into the world with the gospel, there will be those whom God has chosen who will hear our proclamation of the gospel and be saved. To be sure, there will be those who hear and reject, but there will also be those who hear and who repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather than kill evangelism, the belief in the sovereignty of God in the matter of salvation should empower it. If you do not believe that God has chosen certain individuals for salvation and that He will most certainly save them, then how can you have any confidence that anyone will be saved? Election and predestination and adoption encourage and empower evangelism; they do not kill it.

I know that many Calvinists would say "Amen" to these thoughts, but what do our actions say about our attitude toward evangelism. I am ashamed to write this, but it has been my experience that many who embrace the doctrines of grace and who believe that we are to share the gospel with unbelievers make it a practice to only share with those unbelievers who happen to attend their church services. For them, the call to evangelize has been reinterpreted from going into the world with the gospel, to simply telling people that they will hear the gospel if they come to church. "Go ye" has become ‘Ya’ll come." If we are to be faithful to the Word of God, however, we must realize that the command of Christ in Matthew 28.18-20, Mark 16.15-16, Acts 1.8 is to take the gospel into the world; it is a call to "go" with the gospel. This means going door to door into our communities with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must take the gospel to unbelievers and not simply tell them to come and get it.

I do not want to give anyone the wrong impression about my own obedience to the Great Commission. For the overwhelming majority of my pastoral ministry I have been blatantly disobedient to the Lord in this regard. I have not gone door to door with the gospel; I have made little if any effort to "go" with the gospel. At the same time, however, let me also say that I am in the process of repenting of this great evil. I have made a commitment to go out and engage in door to door evangelism each Saturday and by God’s grace I have been able to do so for the past month. It has been a great blessing to have my wonderful wife going out evangelizing with me. This is only a start, but at least it is a start. In that time God has allowed me eight opportunities to share the gospel with unbelievers. While I have not yet seen anyone with whom I have shared repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I know that I am now being obedient and the seeds of the gospel are being sown and God will save those whom He has chosen from the foundation of the world.

I write all of this as an encouragement to those who hold to the doctrines of grace. We are called by God to go into the world of unbelievers with the gospel and we have the assurance that there will be those who will hear and who will repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let that Biblical truth spur us on to even greater obedience to "go with the gospel."