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All right folks, welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. We're going to go ahead and get started this morning. If you would, go ahead and find a seat and grab your, I almost said hymnals, but actually grab your white handouts. We're starting with the Psalm this morning. If you grab your white handouts and turn to Psalm 15 in your white handouts. Should be one either under your seat or under the seat in front of you or you can beat up your neighbor, whatever you have to do, open your Bible, whatever you have to do to get one. Psalm 15 in your white handouts. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle, who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle, who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor take up a reproach against his neighbor. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, in whose eyes a vile person is content, but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. He that swearth to his own hurt and changeth not, he that wouldeth not have his money to usury. He that swearth to his own hurt and changeth not, he that wouldeth not have his money to usury. Nor taketh reward against the innocent, he that doeth these things shall never be moved. Nor taketh reward against the innocent, he that doeth these things shall never be moved. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle, who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Amen. Good singing this morning. Let's open with a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we just thank you for the ability to gather together and sing praises out to your name. I pray that you would be with the service this morning, that everything would be done to your pleasure, everything decently and in order, Lord. I just want to thank you for Brother Fur and Pastor Shelley, and I pray that you would just fill them both with your spirit today and this evening as we go forward, Lord. I also pray that you would just incline your ear to us as we continue to sing out praises this morning. Lord, we love you very much. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's grab your hymnals this morning and turn to hymn number 404. Hymn number 404, When the Battle's Over. Hymn 404, 404, When the Battle's Over. Am I a soldier of the cross, a father of the Lamb? And shall I fear to own His cause or pledge to speak His name? And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. Wear a crown, wear a crown, wear a bright and shining crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. The sky we carry through the skies on flowery beds of leaves, while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. Wear a crown, wear a crown, wear a bright and shining crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. Sure, I must fight if I would bring increase my courage, Lord. I'll bear the toil and turn the pain supported by Thy word. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. Wear a crown, wear a crown, wear a bright and shining crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for being here this morning. If you didn't already get a bulletin, Brother Cameron can hand you one. Just lift up your hand real quick and he'll come by and get you a bulletin. And we have a really exciting announcement there right on the front. The congratulations to the Gillham family on the birth of Eloise Lee Gillum. She was born January 14th. She was six pounds, 13 ounces and 19 and a quarter inches. So congratulations to them. That's really exciting. And hopefully they're all doing really well. And I know that obviously they can't be with us this morning, but we definitely have them in our prayers this morning. So on the inside we have our service times and our soul winning times, as well as church stats. And we have our year goal. What was the previous year? Do we remember what it was? Five hundred and forty-eight. Five hundred and forty-eight. So that's great. Seven hundred year goal. And that's a lot of people that, you know, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of soul winners and a lot of hours to get into the hundreds, five hundred souls and, you know, every soul is worth it. But, you know, we don't want to just get one person saved. We want to try and get as many people saved as possible. And so that's a great encouragement. Also on the right we have the list of expecting ladies. We have Miss Emily Furr and Miss Yasmin Alvarez. So congratulations to them and we'll continue to pray for them. And down below we have our upcoming events. You made it. You know, we have our evangelist ordination service for Brother Furr. And I'm going to be preaching both services actually today. I'm following the sermon this morning, immediately following. I'm going to be ordaining Brother Furr as an evangelist here for the Oklahoma City Church plant. And a lot of people might have a question of, you know, what does that mean or what does that look like? And I'm not going to go through a lot of detail because hopefully this morning's sermon will answer a lot of those questions. I'm going to be preaching on basically what an evangelist does and what the Bible has to say about being an evangelist. But mostly this service is going to kind of memorialize and formalize what Brother Furr has already been doing for the church here. You know, he's already been leading. He's already been preaching. He's been doing a great job organizing the soul winning and being a great soul winner. And so, you know, really it's more of just kind of formalizing the position that he's already been in and to kind of empower him to do more, to basically help this church grow even more and to do more for the Lord. And so I wouldn't necessarily anticipate anything radically different. You know, we've got a new banner up here. It looks really nice. And we're trying to update some of the equipment and things like that. And so, you know, but at the end of the day it's going to be still the same, you know, preaching and teaching and soul winning and everything else that we anticipate. And we're just hoping that the Lord will just bless the efforts that are being done here and will continue to do a lot of work, you know, little as much when God is in it as the hymn sings. And, you know, I really believe that about this church and this area. And the Oklahoma City area, you know, God bless you guys suffering in this cold. But, you know, someone needs to preach the gospel here. And, you know, we need more good churches and churches that will preach the gospel. And you've got a big map over here and a lot of opportunity for doors to knock and people to reach with the gospel. I love soul winning here when it's not cold because it's, you know, it's actually very receptive and there's a lot of people here that, you know, really want to, you know, when they're not smoking marijuana, they're pretty receptive to the gospel. And, you know, I like, I do like it. And in fact, you can use your Spanish here quite a bit. I've ran into a lot of people that are Spanish speaking only and everything like that. So, I mean, I believe there's about, there's over a million people in the surrounding area. Is that correct? Yeah, so we have a lot of doors to knock, a lot of people. We even did a small town soul winning marathon down recently in Moore and Norman. And those went really well and a lot of people down there are receptive too. And so, you know, I really believe that a strong church needs to exist here in the Oklahoma area. And God willing, you know, this will be that church. Also, we have other upcoming events. Oh, the more, the reason why y'all showed up is we're having lunch too. So, it's a catered barbecue lunch. But please stick around immediately after we have all the services and everything like that. We're going to have a lunch. We catered in some prime rib and some sausage and some mac and cheese for the kids and baked beans and then whatever other great treats and goodies y'all brought. And there's a lot of food. So, please stick around, have lunch with us for sure. And then also this evening I'll be preaching as well. And if there's any food left over, you can snack again the second time, all right? We have a baby shower January 22nd for Miss Emily Furr. And they're going to have catered chicken wings and bring your favorite pasta dish. It'll be at 5 p.m. at the church on that Saturday. Also, we have a ladies fellowship February 12th. So, you can put that on the calendar from 2 to 4 p.m. It's a Saturday. And I'll meet here. You can probably ask Brother Furr or his wife if you have any questions about that. And as far as donations and online giving stuff like that, we're trying to get some new bank accounts set up here. We're going to have to re-register some things with the church just to make sure that like a local bank will accept because since we're a Texas entity, we have to file some different paperwork. So, we're hoping to have it all settled by today, but it's going to take just a little bit longer. I pretty much almost have everything online settled, but I'll give you an update pretty soon as far as just giving and everything like that and just correcting some of our banking issues. But that's pretty much all I had. Four announcements. Let's go ahead and go to our third song this morning. Song 208, Grace Greater Than Our Sin. Brother Furr is going to lead for us. Song 208. I don't know if Brother Furr will lead this one, but I'll do it. Prior to 208, there is one more announcement that we have to make per request, and that is that this Friday was actually also Brother Furr's birthday. So, by the request of his daughter, we have to sing as a church to Brother Furr for his birthday. So, I'll go ahead and lead. We'll sing Happy Birthday to Brother Furr. Hey, this is a pretty cool birthday gift, amen? So, all right, let's sing. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, God bless you. Happy birthday to you. Y'all bring on the sombrero and you can wear it for service. Alright, hymn number 208, 208, Grace Greater Than Our Sin, 208. Let's sing. Praise, praise, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and praise within. Praise, praise, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin. Sin and despair like the sea weighs cold, Bread in the soul with infinite loss. Praise that is greater, yes, praise untold, Poised to the refuge the mighty cross. Praise, praise, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and praise within. Praise, praise, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin. Dark is the stain that we cannot hide, What can avail to wash it away? Look, there is glowing a crimson's eye, Wider than stone you may be today. Praise, praise, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and praise within. Praise, praise, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin. Harmless, infinite, righteous grace, Freely bestowed on all who believe. You that are longing to see His face, Will you this moment His grace receive? Praise, praise, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and praise within. Praise, praise, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin. If you would turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter number 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4 and Brother Gore will go ahead and lead us on that. Good morning, 2 Timothy chapter number 4. 2 Timothy chapter number 4, the Bible reads, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead and his appearing and his kingdom, and preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after will their own lusts shall they heap to themselves, teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned into fables. But watch thou in all things endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry, for I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me, for Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica, Cretans to Galatia, Titus to Demacia. Only Luke is with me, take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry. And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee and the books, but especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works, of whom be thou where also, for he hath greatly withstood our words. At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge, notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me into his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Salute Perska and Aquila, and the household of Oniphorus. Erastus abode at Corinth, but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick. Do thy diligence to come before winter. Ebullus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just thank you so much for this day. Right now, Lord, we just ask you that you'd be with the pastor as he gives the word. Lord, we're thankful for this wonderful day, and just pray that your grace will be with us. Just pray that you'd open this congregation's heart nearest to your word, in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Amen. I wanted to go back to the beginning of this chapter. The Bible reads in verse number 1. I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist make full proof of thy ministry. So, in 2 Timothy, chapter number 4, we have the admonition given to Timothy, a pastor, that he has a very important job, and that job is to preach the word. Now, in giving instructions to Timothy, he also gives him an admonition, in verse number 5, to do the work of an evangelist, to do the work of an evangelist. And the word evangelist is only found in your Bible three times, okay? It's only found in three different places. But in order for Paul to successfully tell Timothy these instructions, there has to be something that really is the work of an evangelist, otherwise this would be a vain and meaningless statement. But rather, there has some weight and some meaning to this particular phrase of the work of an evangelist. And so, the title of my sermon this morning is this, the work of an evangelist, the work of an evangelist. And I believe as we study scripture on what an evangelist does and what it looks like, then we can realize the admonition that was given to the pastor. But obviously, if we learn what the role or job of an evangelist is so the pastor knows what to do, it also helps the evangelist know what to do, right? So, if you end up having an evangelist, it's going to be very needful and helpful to him to realize what kind of job duties, what kind of functions and responsibilities he would have as an evangelist, okay? And notice in this chapter that a way to combat false doctrine, a way to combat apostasy, a way to combat people going after fables is evangelism. Because isn't that the admonition? He's saying people are going to go into all this heresy and people are going to go into these apostasy and people are going to turn away their ears from the truth. That's why it's important to preach the Word of God and to do the work of an evangelist. Because this is a two-fold pronged attack that's going to basically dispel apostasy, reduce heresy, basically bring people back to the Lord. You can't just preach the Word of God to a wall. You know, you can't just preach the Word of God to an empty crowd. No, you need to go out into the highways and hedges and also compel them that are not already saved, compel them that are not already Christian to be saved. Not only compel people to be saved, but compel the saved to come into the house of God and to hear the Word of God being preached. And so we need to both go and preach the Word of God in person. And the primary role of this evangelist is he's going out and doing the work. He's going and preaching the gospel. He's trying to reach the unreached. He's trying to reach people that don't already have the gospel or basically are in stage one. And maybe he's going to bring them to stage two or bring them closer to the Lord. Now go to Ephesians chapter four for a moment. Ephesians chapter four. I want to make it clear that the Bible teaches that an evangelist is a position. It would make no sense for the admonition of doing the work of an evangelist if an evangelist doesn't even exist, right? There has to be a person that's an evangelist in order to do the work of an evangelist, right? If I said do the work of a plumber, it's because plumbers exist. If I say do the work of a cop, it's because cops exist. If I say do the work of a building contractor or whatever it is, it's because that position exists. There's a person that has that role. There's a person that has that title or does that kind of work. And he's saying you need to do their job as well, okay? And a lot of times, depending on what position you have or what role or company you work for, you might wear a lot of different hats. You might actually end up doing a lot of different jobs or positions. And sometimes you have to do the work of someone that's underneath you or you have to do the work of someone that you're training or leading to also fulfill your role. When I worked in the software industry, I was a senior software developer, and sometimes you do the work of a programmer. It doesn't mean that you're a programmer. It just means that you're doing the work of a programmer. Now a programmer is doing the hard labor. They're the ones that are actually coding and doing the work. Sometimes the senior developer, though, he's just kind of plotting out, creating all the plans and the ideas of what's going to actually happen. Then the programmer is the one that does the work. So thinking like building a house, there's the architect or there's the building contractor. He kind of lays out the work, but then he has the framer do the framing or the plumber does the plumbing. But it's possible that the contractor could do the work of the plumber, do the work of the framer, in a sense, right? And so we have the evangelist as a role, is a job that someone is going to specialize in and do the work of, and that pastors are supposed to also do that role. They're not supposed to just allow others to do the evangelism for them, but rather they're supposed to do evangelism themselves. But that doesn't take away from the fact that we need evangelists. It doesn't take away from the fact that evangelists is a very important role in the Bible, and we need men to do this. It says in Ephesians chapter 4, verse number 10, He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. So we have again the mention of an evangelist here. This is the second mention that we've looked at this morning and notice that it's a gift. You know, some people scoff at the idea of a pastor or an evangelist or a deacon being a gift. But the Bible says that these men are gifts under the church, gifts under the congregation, because really a person fulfilling one of these roles is sacrificing themselves, sacrificing of their own lives in order to minister and to serve the congregation. And so really it's a gift. And the evangelist here. Notice the Bible is saying that you don't get all these necessarily. Some just get an evangelist, some just get a pastor, some get a teacher, you know. And when it comes to the work of the Lord, you know, I would love for there to be an independent fundamental Baptist church within five minutes of everybody's house in the whole world. But let's be honest, that's never going to happen. OK, now that doesn't mean that we can't continually plant churches and try to grow and try to, you know, basically reach the whole world with the gospel. We have to be realistic and understand that not everybody is going to receive the gospel. Not every country, not every nation, not every state, not every city, not every area is going to want a fire-breathing Baptist church to be in their area. And so you're only going to get so much. But, you know, whatever you do end up receiving, you need to be thankful for that which you receive. And, you know, having an evangelist is a gift. Some people only ever will get this. You know, if you lived in 90 some percent of the rest of the world, you know, non-America or, you know, other very similar countries, you probably never going to get a great church. You may never even get a dedicated evangelist in your area or a missionary or anything like that. Sometimes they only have missionaries just kind of come through their town or area just for a short space and then move on. You know, or they have a church come and go or they have really bad options for churches. You know, they don't even have like a Baptist church option. They just have, you know, the Presbyterian Church or something. And it's like, I don't want to go here. You know, so you have to realize that in America, we're spoiled today. I mean, there's literally so many churches just within our area. It makes the fast food industry seem pedantic. You know, I mean, it's just you just drive up and down the street and it's just like church, bank, church, McDonald's, bank. You know what I mean? It's just like, but church is one of the main things in the United States, especially in Oklahoma, especially in the Bible Belt, as it were. And at the end of the day, though, while there might be a plethora of options, that doesn't mean there's always a great option. That's why we have a church like Steadfast Baptist Church. OK, see here where you can have a great option. And if you have an evangelist, you have to realize that's a great opportunity and honor to have an evangelist. OK, go if you would to Acts chapter number twenty one, Acts chapter twenty one. And I guarantee if we were to meet the only man in the Bible that's called the evangelist. OK, everybody in here would be excited to see him. You know, nobody would be like, oh, we only have Philip. OK, now Philip is called the evangelist in the Bible. OK, and I'm going to show you the third mention of evangelist. But again, I guarantee there would be no church today that would look and say like, oh, we only have Philip. You know, they would think it was a great honor and a great privilege to have Philip. But here's the thing you have to understand. Philip was a man just like you and I. Philip was a normal guy with a normal family, with normal issues. You know, we like to always build up the men of the Bible as thinking that they're like these superhuman type people that, you know, like, well, if I had Paul, you know, whereas the Bible describes Paul as being contemptible in the flesh, meaning when he showed up, you would be like, this is Paul. You know, like what's going on with Paul? Like, I think I could take him, you know, like he doesn't look that rough. He doesn't look that tough. You know, and you actually had people saying things like that, people talking bad about Paul, disrespecting Paul. They're like, there's nothing special about him. Just his letters. You know, it's like, I guess his letters are weighty, but like in the flesh, there's nothing to be, you know, seen. And it's real easy to get comfortable with the people, you know, or the people that you see or you get to see their family or you see them make mistakes or you know their problems or whatever. But you know what? We should respect the position that someone's in regardless of the personality. You should say, you know what? If this person is evangelist, you know, I should give them the ultimate level of respect that I would give even to Philip, even though I've never met Philip, because I guarantee you, roles reversed. You know, you met Philip and there's a guy in the Bible named Tanner Fer that's the evangelist. You'd be like, oh man, it'd be so great to have Tanner. And it's like, you do. But see, you know, who cares about the names and the personality and all the other stuff? It doesn't really matter. You know, you should just respect the position and realize God's giving us a great gift here, just like he gave people in the book of Acts. Now in chapter 21, look at verse 8, the Bible describes a man as the evangelist. And the next day we that were of Paul's company departed and came into Caesarea. And we entered into the house of Philip, the evangelist, which is one of the seven and abode with him. The same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy. So here's your three mentions of evangelists in the Bible. OK, you have in 2 Timothy, chapter four, the admonition to the work of an evangelist. You have the Bible tell us in Ephesians four that God gave some evangelists. OK, and then you have a man described here, Philip, as the evangelist. So I think from, you know, from a biblical understanding, we realize this is a position. We realize this is a title that's given to certain men. Certain men have this particular role or function. And and that is a very important role. I mean, it's something that a pastor is supposed to do. It's a gift from God. And this guy is a select man out of seven chosen, you know, out of the congregation. Seven men are chosen. He's one of those seven men that has a very special privilege of doing the work of the Lord. And he's mentioned here. So we don't want to undervalue the role of an evangelist, but rather we want to realize it's a very important role. Now, to understand what the evangelist does, I think it's best to kind of analyze Philip because he's described as an evangelist. We kind of look at the things that he does to get some ideas of what what is this evangelist doing? We realize it's important, realizes a gift from God. We realize that, you know, men that are chosen to do this are special or unique. They have a unique privilege. But what is it that they're really supposed to be doing? Well, let's go to Acts Chapter six. Since it says he was one of the seven, let's figure out, you know, some of the stuff that was going on or who should even be in this role. OK. Can we just let anybody be the evangelist? Now, I want to say something and make a distinction. I believe that every Christian that saved has the job duty of being an evangelist. OK, so I believe in some sense of the word and in some definition of the word, every saved person is evangelist. You know, we're all supposed to go out and preach the gospel. And if you look up the word evangelism or evangelist or evangelize in the dictionary, the dictionary says someone who preached the gospel. OK, so we're going to go on that definition. You know, that's every person that's saved. Jesus Christ has sent us all to preach the gospel and to all be evangelists and all to preach the word of God. And and so I don't want to take away from that either. But there's going to be certain men that have the title of an evangelist. And it's going beyond just your average normal regular day soul winner to something a little bit more elevated. And when we're deciding who's going to do this job or do this role, there's going to be certain qualifications. There's going to be certain requirements that we look to in order to select someone to have this type of a role or this kind of a job duty. Now, look what it says in Acts Chapter six, verse three. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business. Now, in Acts chapter number six, it's the church is starting out. They have some problems. They need more manpower. And the apostles are basically they've stopped studying the Bible to basically just get stuff done. And that can be a frustrating situation. I know what that's like sometimes. OK. And it's not appropriate to just stay in that role forever if you can change it. You should try to empower more people and add more people to work so that you can go back to studying the Bible and the word of God and the things that are really important here. So they end up appointing seven men that they're asking the congregation to basically, you know, pick somebody or pick some guys out that would be able to fulfill this role of serving tables. Now, I believe that number six is kind of fulfilling a role of a deacon. If you kind of study the Bible and you study the scripture of kind of what the role of the purpose is. But we're going to see that Philip is end up being selected in this role. And then as the church gets kind of destroyed in Jerusalem and just completely wrecked havoc and these people are spread, we kind of see Philip transitioning into the role of the evangelists and kind of doing the work of an evangelist. But that doesn't change the qualifications and what they thought was necessary for this man, Philip, to end up being ordained. Why would they want to ordain a certain individual to be in a position of full time service for the Lord or, you know, basically this elevated position? Well, in verse number three, they say number one of honest report. I mean, this guy has integrity, meaning this person is a truthful person, is an honest person that, you know, when you ask other people what they think about this individual, they would say this guy is a trustworthy guy. This guy is a straightforward person. He's a very honest person. Not that he has a report where essentially, oh, this guy ripped me off. This guy lies to me all the time. This guy's doing all this evil or this guy's deceitful or I think he's kind of fake. You know, it's someone that seems genuine. It's someone that's very truthful, someone that's very honest. They have a lot of character about them and it's not just coming from them. It's not like I've decided that I'm the most humble person here. You know, I'm the most honest person here. I asked myself a couple of different times and every time, you know, it always seems to come up smelling like roses. No, no, you should ask other people. Other people should tell of your goodness and how honest and truthful that you are. And it should be apparent by asking different people. And so anytime we, you know, select someone to be in a position of, you know, an ordained position in the church, I believe it's very important to ask around, ask different men of the church, see what they think about certain individuals, and to just basically get a general report of the church so that we know, is this guy a worthy guy? Not to just randomly pick somebody without having any idea or someone we don't know, but it's someone that's respected even amongst the congregation. It doesn't mean the person's perfect. It doesn't mean the person's never lied. But in general, this person's an honest and trustworthy person. People like this individual. Second thing it says here is full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. Now, being full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom is kind of, in my mind, it's kind of a two parter here. If we kind of look at wisdom, keep your, don't keep your finger here because we're not coming back, but go to Proverbs chapter 11 for a moment, go to Proverbs chapter 11. The thing about wisdom, you know, wisdom is applied understanding. And what I mean by that applied understanding is it means that not only you have good knowledge, not only do you understand that knowledge, you actually do that knowledge. OK, you put that knowledge into practice, into effort. You know, it's not really wise for you to know what to do, but not do it. OK, someone that's considered wise is someone that's actually doing it. Now, when we come when we think about the wisest thing someone could do, I believe the Bible describes that as being a soul winner. It says in Proverbs chapter number 11, look what it says in verse number 30. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that win his souls is wise. Notice this is like an active state of being. It's saying the person that's winning souls to Christ, it just is wise. It's not like they're becoming wise or eventually will be wise. It's saying that the person actively is wise. OK, so if we want to find someone that has wisdom, OK, how about picking someone that is wise, which will be what someone that's already a soul winner, someone that's already actively engaging and preaching the gospel, getting people saved, reaching people with the word of God. And when we think about wisdom, again, just to help you understand this. It the knowledge and concerning to this area would be the knowledge of how to be saved. Right. John three sixteen. Someone could have that knowledge. But here's the thing. Someone could have that knowledge and not understand it. And you meet these people a lot. You'll go and people go to church. They can quote John three sixteen for you, but then you'll ask them, OK, so what does that mean you have to do to be saved? And they'll say, go to church, be a good person. And I'm thinking that verse said whosoever believeth in me, you know, whosoever believeth in him. You know, it's not saying whosoever goes to church. It said whosoever believeth in him should not perish but everlasting life. Right. It just says faith alone. So then you kind of see that there's a gap between someone's knowledge and understanding. Right. What would be the next layer that would be understanding when you say, OK, what does this verse mean? What does John three sixteen mean, though? And they say it means that if you just put simple faith in Jesus Christ, you'll be saved forever. OK, that person has knowledge and understanding. But what if I then said, OK, well, did you do that? And they say no. Well, that person is not wise. OK, because you're not wise if you know that all you have to do is believe in Jesus. We say and you understand what that means, but you choose not to do it. I've met atheists who I preach the gospel to them and they said, OK, yeah, I know what the Bible saying. And and what you're telling me is that the Bible says all I have to do is believe in Jesus. Just put my full trust in him and I'll be saved and go to heaven. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, you want to do that? And they say no. Here's the problem. They're not wise yet because that wisdom would come from actually doing John three sixteen. OK, so when we talk about a soul winner, it's not someone that just has knowledge of how to get someone saved or understands how to get someone saved. It's someone that gets someone saved. It's a soul winner. That's the person that's actually wise is the person that's putting it into practice. Go to Psalms thirty seven. Go to Psalms thirty seven. Flip back a little bit. So we want to find a man that's got integrity. We want to find a man that's honest. We want to find a man that's a soul winner that's winning people to Christ because that's a wise person. And really, that's the best investment you can make in this life because you can't take the physical possessions you have with you. You know, you can't take in heaven is the souls that you've won to Christ because nothing can separate them from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You know, once they're in Jesus hand and God the Father's hand, he's pulling them up to heaven. You know, it doesn't matter what they try to do or what efforts or energy they expel. You can't lose your salvation once you've trusted in Christ. That's why it's good news. OK, and the best thing you can do is preach the good news that's going to make someone a wise person. Psalms thirty seven. Look at verse thirty. The Bible says the mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgment. So another indication of wisdom to me is someone that is essentially not just preaching what's popular, but they're also going to preach judgment. Notice that it says the mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgment. So we could also discern that someone that's preaching with the Bible says they're preaching the wisdom of God. They're preaching the judgment of God. This is a righteous person. And, you know, when we think about righteousness, you know, we have Christ imputed righteousness upon us. You know, when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you're considered righteous in his sight. But we want to go beyond just having imputed righteousness to where we ourselves are trying to walk in righteousness, where we walk in faith and we're and we're serving the Lord. And really, when we see men in the Bible who God is really going to commend to us and really going to say like this is a righteous guy. And he's not just talking about him being saved. He's talking about this is a really righteous person in the eyes of the Lord. It's always based on their faith. It's never based on the fact that they just like never sin or something like that, because, in fact, many of the people that we look to as being very righteous in the sight of God have some pretty big sins. I mean, we could look at people like David, you know, committed murder and adultery. That would cause a lot of people to think that person's never going to be considered righteous. Right. But he's the man after God's own heart. You know, we got people like Moses, who God uses as his servant and is considered the meekest man on the face of the earth. But he was a murderer. OK, and we have a lot of men in the Bible struggling, having problems. They're not perfect. You know what's the common denominator between all the righteous men in the Bible? They have a lot of faith in God and they're doing the works of God and they're going out and they're preaching the gospel and they're reaching people with the word of God and they're very humble in their own sight and they're little in their own sight. And they're willing to preach the judgment of God regardless of what the world thinks. You know, they're willing to preach the word of God and let the chips fall where they may. And maybe they have a real successful ministry. You know, maybe they're like a David or a Solomon where they gather a lot of people in themselves and bring peace in the kingdom. But they could be a Jeremiah where basically everyone hates them. And you know what? It's not your job to decide how the chips are going to fall. It's your job to just be faithful to the word of God. Some men of the Bible have great successes with their ministry in the sense that they're seeing multitudes saved and people are turning the Lord and they're real excited. Other ministries are in a carnal sense a seeming failure where everybody hates them. They end up dying a martyr and then just basically it goes really poorly for them. But you know what's the common denominator between them as they preach the word of God? Is they have faith in the Lord and they're preaching that judgment. That's a person that we want to put in a position to serve God is someone that says, I don't care if it's good or bad going for me, I'm just going to preach the Bible. I don't care how many people are reached or not reached. I'm going to preach the judgment of God. I'm going to preach the wisdom of God. I'm going to do that which has been required of me is to be a faithful deliverer, a faithful messenger of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And not letting the, you know, the winds of the world decide if you're going to open your mouth boldly, but rather you're going to say, I'm just going to open my mouth period. I'm just going to let the word of God thunder in this country, thunder in this land, thunder in this area. And I'm not going to be concerned with what happens to me personally. Go to Luke chapter number four. Go to Luke chapter number four. I'm taking a minute here to kind of build the foundation. I'm going to get into three quick points, OK, of what the evangelist is doing. But we're kind of building here a foundation of knowing evangelist is important, evangelist is a role. And what are we looking for when we're trying to select an evangelist or trying to find someone that's honest or trying to find someone that's full of wisdom, which is through what? Being a soul winner and preaching the Bible. And then ultimately, he's also full of the Holy Ghost. OK, now this one on the surface might seem a little difficult to kind of analyze. Right. You say, like, how do I know someone's full of the Holy Ghost? Because I don't seem like glowing, you know, I don't see, you know, I don't see him, you know, like a Pentecostal walking up like I'm full of the Holy Ghost. You know, come on down the aisle. I'm just I'm feeling it. Do you feel it, brother? And then just smacking each other on the head and falling over. I mean, that's what the world wants to do is they want to see a physical manifestation of the Holy Ghost, don't they? And there's a lot of fakes and there's a lot of frauds and there's a lot of cheap substitutes for the Holy Ghost. But the Bible, I believe, gives us an idea of how we can discern if someone's full of the Holy Ghost. OK, look at Luke, chapter four, verse one and Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost. Here's a good example. Return from Jordan and was led by the spirit in the wilderness. Here's how you know someone's full of the Holy Ghost or not. Are they led by the spirit? Are they led by the spirit? Now you say, OK, so what does that look like? Being led by the spirit means you look at this person and you say the decisions they make in their life. Are they spiritual decisions or they carnal decisions? Is this person, you know, putting God first in their life? Are they being led by the Lord? You know, are they putting church above their own personal hobbies and interests? Are they putting soul winning above their own personal hobbies and interests? Is this a person who is concerned with others serving others? Is this a person that's putting their family in a position to serve the Lord? You know, is their wife submitting unto the husband? Is their children, you know, are they being learned in the things of God? Are they basically instructed in the ways of the Lord? Because that would show me someone that's being led of the spirit. Why? Because when they're reading their Bible and they're letting the Holy Ghost tell them how to live their lives, rather than letting the world tell them how to live their lives, rather than letting Hollywood and all these other things. So we should see a man that's been separated by the word of God. That's how you're going to identify a man that's full of the Holy Ghost. A man that's not full of the Holy Ghost is not going to put. He's not going to put basically the word of God as the forefront of his decision making. He's going to put Hollywood or sports interests or his family, you know, whatever is just basically out in this world that he can do. That's a substitute. He's going to do that. So when we're looking for a man to be put in this position, it's someone that's sold out, that's preaching the word of God day in, day out. You know, this is not a person that's just kind of like, well, I'll serve God today. Maybe, you know, they've like already decided, you know, I've already decided I'm going to follow Jesus. No turning back. No, I'm putting him at the forefront. And all these qualifications really, when you think about it, make perfect sense, don't they? Because if someone's going to be a dedicated preacher of the gospel, don't you kind of want them to already emulated or shown us that they're already someone that's going to put the gospel to the forefront? That they they've been a dedicated person. They've already shown a lot of integrity. They've shown a lot of wisdom and they're going to preach the word of God regardless of what this world has to say. So go to Acts, chapter number eight, go back to Acts, and we'll kind of get into some points here of what that work of the evangelist is. We've identified its role. We've identified it's important. We've identified, you know, what kind of qualifications we're looking for when we select someone to do the work of an evangelist. And I'll say I'm not going to turn all these verses, but, you know, an evangelist could be a full time paid position, or it could just simply be someone that's still providing for themselves and in a secular means. I don't think that really it matters. You know, just basically it just depends on the opportunities that are afforded them. Right. To me, I would prefer that every person in an ordained position is full time being paid by their ministry. You know, that's what the Bible basically teaches is that, you know, you should plow and hope, you know, you should basically be able to reap the benefits. But a lot of times when starting churches or starting these works and everything like that is very difficult to basically be paid by your own ministry. So sometimes you have to work by your own hands. You know, the apostle Paul did a lot of evangelism. I mean, talk about one of the greatest evangelists in the Bible. You know, as far as just the jobs that he was doing, obviously was an apostle, but he had to go and make tents. And you know what? That didn't take away from how spiritual Paul is that he made tents. It's not like having a secular job disqualifies you from being spiritual or something like that. You know, you can be spiritual every moment of your life. You know, when you go to your secular job, when you're dealing with your family, no matter what scenario you find yourself in, you can be a spiritual person. You can be a spiritual person in jail. OK, so there's no preclusion on being spiritual by not necessarily being full time paid or whatever like that. You know, it doesn't really matter. But, you know, God willing, if a ministry grows and has the ability to allow someone to do even more for the Lord, why not? Why not allow them, you know, employ them and allow them to serve, you know, in a more full time capacity or put more hours to that service? I would love that. You know, I would love to send evangelists all over the world. You know, we have a lot of missionaries in this world today and they go on deputation for two years. And really, it's more like hibernation, if you ask me, because they really don't do anything. They just travel and give the same PowerPoint presentation to dozens and dozens of churches begging for money. But where in the Bible is that people begging for money? You know, all the people that are begging are like the cripple and the blind in the Bible wanting to receive some kind of a gift. You know, that's what I think is, you know, these missionaries are like cripple, you know, they're like the lame. I mean, they're really just lame, cripple people just basically just asking for handouts, you know, rather than evangelists going out and preaching the gospel. Because guess what? Preaching the gospel is free. I don't know if you realize this. You just got a Bible in your hand. You can just preach all day long. I mean, it doesn't cost a lot of money. And we need more people that are committed to preaching the word rather than getting a paycheck. Because a lot of missionaries, they get paid full time, but they work about 1% of the time. You know, they do a very little effort, whereas we want to, we want to reverse engineer this process. We want to get people that are working full time and then eventually get them where they're being paid full time. Rather than trying to pay people full time and then try to motivate them to work later. It's like, what motivation do you have to work at this point? You know, you're already getting paid. You know, that's a bad philosophy. Okay, so we have in Acts, chapter 8, look at verse 1, the Bible says, And Saul was consenting unto his death, talking about Stephen, one of the seven. And at that time, there was great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Now, what I like to point out, Acts, chapter 8, is a lot about Philip and the works that he does. But notice that the works that Philip is going to do in this chapter are during one of the greatest persecutions against the church the world's ever seen. At this point in time. Now, I believe in the future, even when going through some of the greatest persecutions the church will ever see, that we're going to have evangelists doing great works for the Lord. We're going to have people going out and preaching the gospel and sharing the gospel of the lost and doing great works for the Lord. So even if the church is going bad, evangelism can go great. And there's great persecution. You know, it says in, if you skip down to verse number 5, it says, Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. So basically he's in this church, probably more in a role of a deacon, but kind of a hybrid, probably a deacon evangelist. But then once the church is basically dissolved through persecution, he just leaves, goes to Samaria, and now he's just preaching the gospel to other people. And so he's basically been pushed into this role. And obviously this is not ideal. Okay, but you have to understand a lot of things in the book of Acts are not ideal. They just happen. And then God is going to later formalize those processes through the epistles written to the churches and to the pastors and saying, like, this is what it's really supposed to look like. And Acts, they're kind of just figuring things out and just screwing up all the time and doing weird things. But God just divinely is orchestrating them to fill their role, whether they want to or not. So he's basically like, you need to just get out there and go evangelize. He's just kicking them out. And basically he's going to Samaria, but what is he doing? He's preaching the gospel. Why? Because the primary work of an evangelist is to be a soul winner. It's soul winning. You say, what's the first work of an evangelist? Soul winning. And it really could be number one, two, three, four, five. I mean, it's all about soul winning. That's why it's so funny to me. When I first came on with Steadfast Baptist Church, there was a person in the role of evangelist. Okay. And this person was a fake evangelist, but his name was Adam Fanon. And this this guy literally when I took over, I was told by multiple men of the church that he didn't go soul winning as a leader. Like he maybe went so many once a week, maybe, but even then, he wasn't even going regularly and he wasn't ever leading us all any time. And I'm thinking like he's an ordained evangelist and he doesn't even lead us all any time. I'm like, that's absurd. I mean, that would be the same as like being a preacher. And like, when do you preach? Well, I don't preach. You know, I'm a plumber. OK, well, when do you lay pipe? I never do. You know, I'm a mother. Where are your children? I don't have any children. You're like, what? How does that even work? Why have cats? You're not a mother. OK. You know, it's not that, you know, you have to have a really primary job duty in a role for these things to make sense. The reason why you're called an evangelist, because you evangelize. OK. And an evangelist is one who's trying to win people over to their side. In fact, a lot of companies today in America have taken this title on for their their company and they'll hire people to be an evangelist. And they're not preaching the gospel, though. They're preaching, you know, Microsoft. They're preaching, you know, whatever their company sells. I've seen Microsoft literally has people. They'll be like, I'm the evangelist for Microsoft. And all they do is just basically try to sell their products to people that already have that product or they're basically trying to promote a particular product. And and really the sales world is just trying to emulate the gospel. But that doesn't take away from the true evangelism that we're supposed to be doing, which is preaching the gospel, proselytizing, trying to convert people to the Lord by being a soul winner. And that's what Philip is doing here, his primary role here is just going out, preaching people and going to different kinds of people. Skip forward to this chapter to verse twenty six. And the angel Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, go toward the south under the way that goes down from Jerusalem into Gaza, which is a desert. And he rose and went and behold, a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all our treasure and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning and sitting in his chariot, read Isaiah the prophet. Then the spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. Now, what I want to point out is this. When you read the Book of Acts, you cannot always just say everything that happens is right. It's actually just a story. So then we have to interpret the story. We have to ask, like, is the actions that they're taking correct here or not? But here's some ways that you know that you're right when the Holy Ghost is telling you. OK, so when Philip goes to Samaria to preach, someone could argue like, well, is that right? Should he have stayed or what was going on? But notice an angel of the Lord then shows up and is like, go here. OK, so there's confirmed confirmation that Philip's supposed to be going right. And then on top of that, there's a guy reading the Bible and he's saying, go join thyself under this man. So we have a confirmation from the angel of the Lord and the Spirit of God that this is what he's supposed to be doing. He's supposed to be going and he's supposed to be preaching to people. OK, so keep that in your mind here as we kind of look at this chapter a little bit. But I like that it says go. And then in verse 30 and Philip ran. Does this guy does this guy seem like he's just kind of like, I'm just preaching the gospel or whatever? Or does it seem like he has a zeal about him, doesn't it? Hey, this guy's not just lackadaisical. He's not going to take two years and beg money to go talk to this guy. No, he runs to the guy, doesn't he? And he opens his Bible or he looks at the same Bible this guy has. And the same place that he's reading, he ends up preaching him the gospel. It says in verse number 30 and Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, understand, is thou what thou readest? And he said, how can I accept so man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. Place of the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb done before a shearer. So opened he not his mouth and his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. And you shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee of whom speak of the prophet, this of himself or some other man. Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him, Jesus. So when he shows up, he's also emphasizing a very particular doctrine. What is that doctrine? It's Jesus Christ. He's preaching the gospel. He's not showing him any other doctrine. He's not going through the law. He's not going through and showing him, you know, all of all the different kinds of doctrines he could possibly be showing him. He's focusing on Jesus Christ. He's focusing on the gospel. He's focusing on the death, burial and resurrection. That's what's in here in Isaiah. And isn't it pretty? Wouldn't it be nice if when we go soul winning, people are already reading like Romans 10 or something like, you know, they're reading Matthew, Mark, Luke or John three. Like I'm reading John three, verse 15 and 16. Come here. Explain that to me. You're like, sure. You know, I'm going to start at the same place, you know? And at this time, they don't have the New Testament yet. So what better than Isaiah 53 or what better than some portion of scripture that's all about Jesus Christ that he can just sit here and be like, let me tell you all about this guy. And the fact that he died and he bear our sins in his own body on the tree. And, you know, he's obviously going to preach him a lot of great verses here from the Old Testament. But it says in verse thirty six, and as they went on their way, they came into a certain water and the eunuch said, see, here is water. What does hinder me to be baptized? So in this passage, we have him going, he's running, he's preaching the gospel. And and really the work of evangelists is going to be primarily soul. But here's the second work that we have baptizing and we have him right here. He's preaching the gospel. The guy probably already got him saved. We don't really know because the Bible is not going to elaborate on every single detail. But this guy is already wondering about baptism. Talk about a great person to preach the gospel. So can you imagine you're preaching to them and you pray and they're like, hey, I want to get baptized to what do I do? And you're like, let me tell you all about it, you know, like this stuff doesn't really happen, you know, very often. So it's kind of nice that he gets the layup, as it were. Right. But he says in verse number thirty seven, and Philip said, if thou believes all thine heart thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. So he's basically just want to confirm the guy saved. The guy makes it clear he believes in Jesus Christ. OK. And then it says in verse thirty eight, he commanded the chariot to stand still. And they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized them. So here's another great thing that evangelists can do is he can baptize people. And, you know, I've already preached sermons on this, but I believe that those who should baptize are those who've been ordained, ordained men of the church should be the people who do the baptisms. And some people get offended by that. I don't really know why. But, you know, if you want to get baptized by John the Baptist, you had to go out in the wilderness. And I guarantee that was more difficult than driving down to your local church to get baptized, you know, or to show up at a service time to end up getting baptized and then seeing some guy eating wild, you know, honey and locusts and wearing a camel tuxedo or whatever. I mean, you know, and he's ripping face, too. And, you know, some people be like, oh, well, why do you have to rip face when they show up to service? They would have got baptized because I've literally had people show up to get baptized. And in the middle of my preaching, they just leave. And then they didn't get baptized. And it's kind of disappointing. What do you think? I guarantee people showed up to John the Baptist to get baptized. They heard the preaching and then left. Yeah. You know, that happened. You know, don't get mad at me. You know, it's not my fault. And think about it. What does baptism even represent? It represents that you want to walk in newness of life, that you want to serve God with your life. Why would I want to, you know, trick somebody into that? But why don't I just preach the hardcore stuff to them and see, like, do you really want to serve Christ? Do you really want to count the cost? What's the point in getting baptized if you're not even going to serve God? You know, that's the whole essence of what you're doing is you're saying I do want to serve God. I want to make a public profession of my faith in Christ. That's why it's kind of a public step. That's why it takes a little bit of effort to end up getting baptized. OK. And I don't have any problem with that. I would think that it makes sense that people should put forth effort to get baptized based on the whole point of what baptism represents. But we need men that are ordained so that we can baptize. So that person that is zealous, that person does desire to get baptized, has someone there available to baptize them. OK. And it's no coincidence that the Lord is like getting, you know, fill up in the right place at the right time. And they just happen to pass some water. And it's like it's now or never, you know, let's do this thing. And he baptized them. Now, some people would say, OK, well, then what's the next step for the evangelist? You know, or what does the Lord really want the evangelist to do now? Well, let's not guess. Let's see what the Bible says. And when they were come up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more. And he went on his way rejoicing. He said, well, what is it? What is the spirit want him to do? He wants him to go somewhere else. Look at verse 40. But Philip was found as Otis in passing to be preached in all the cities till he came to Cestria. So notice this guy, his primary job, just preach the gospel, get him baptized. And then if he never sees them again, it was the spirit that wanted to do that anyways. Notice this guy is just literally just going out and just getting taken names and just, you know, bam. Babs, you know, say baptized next guy. Where's the next guy? Where's the next? I mean, this guy is just zealous for getting people saved, getting them baptized. Someone would be like, well, what church is he going to go to? He's going to go to the one in heaven when he dies. That's where he's going to go. I don't know. Do we have any record of this eunuch ever going to church? Now, look, I'm not down on church. You know, I love church. OK, you know, I preach about people getting into church. You know, it's really important as people go into heaven and notice that the evangelist is going to emphasize what? Is he emphasizing people getting saved and baptized or is he emphasizing church? He's emphasizing people getting saved and baptized, if you ask me. That's why it's silly. I've heard, you know, stories from these evangelists or whatever. They're like emphasizing church over preaching the gospel or soul winning. And I'm thinking like that's the exact opposite of what the Bible is literally saying. I mean, the spirit is literally bringing this guy to a random dude, getting him saved and baptized. And then the spirit didn't even let him give the track the follow up, you know, like, hey, and this is where we go to, you know, just whisked away. It's like he's like, oh, man, I want to go to that guy's church. You know, you don't want to go to that guy's church because Saul's wreaking havoc anyways. Right. I mean, it was being persecuted like crazy anyway. So there's not really at a point. Now, again, I'm not down on church. You know that I'm not going to Matthew, chapter twenty eight. Go to Matthew twenty eight. But if we're going to say, what is the evangelist more concerned with? And I'm not saying he's not concerned with church. I'm saying what is he more concerned with? It's soul winning and baptizing, soul winning and baptizing, getting people saved and then getting them to the next step. Now, what's probably the most important things that you can do? Well, let's ask Jesus. Right. Matthew twenty eight, verse 18. And Jesus came and spake of them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. So notice there's point one and point two. And look, the evangelist gets to do the number one best job and the second best job. And here's the thing. What's the third part of the Great Commission? It says this, teaching them to serve all things. Whatsoever commanded you and lo, I am with you all way, even in the end of the world. Amen. I would say this. The evangelist also fulfills this role. It's just we want to keep our priorities the same priorities of Jesus. Stay first, baptized second, discipled third. So what's the third work of an evangelist is discipling. So number one, he's soul winning. Number two, he's baptizing. Number three, he's discipling. OK. And I want to prove this. Go back to Acts chapter number eight. Go back to Acts chapter number eight and I'll show you how the evangelist is also going to be doing discipling. Now, disciple, you know, is found in your Bible so many times. I mean, the Bible talks constantly about disciples and disciples are very important as well. But you have to understand about a disciple or being discipled is that not everybody wants to be discipled. Very few are going to end up being disciples of Jesus Christ. And, you know, I think of a church like ours as having a really high disciple to member ratio, whereas a lot of other churches don't really have a high disciple to member ratio. And, you know, every church and every organization is going to have their specialties and their nuances and everything like that. And look, there's plenty of other independent Baptist churches in this area. And, you know what? They still serve the same God that I do. OK. They still have the same plan of salvation. They have a lot of things, you know, going for them that are good. But sometimes they may not be emphasizing the right things or maybe they're not really working on the discipleship program the way that they should. OK. And here's the reason why they don't is because when you work on discipleship, people leave. You know, when Jesus starts preaching to his disciples, many of them walked away with the Bible says, and here's the thing, a church that's really emphasizing discipleship is probably never going to be your biggest church. But that is OK, because what are they doing? They're working on quality over quantity. And the disciples, someone that's sold out for Jesus. Let's be honest. Most people that are saved are not going to get sold out for Jesus. OK. That doesn't mean that we don't have a desire for that. That doesn't mean that we're trying not going to train people to do that. But what I believe is that a church like ours is going to really work on discipleship. OK. And what's what what are you what are you trying to do with a disciple? You're trying to make someone like you. That's really what a disciple is. You're teaching them, training them how to be like you. That's what it's like. Why did Jesus have disciples? He was trying to take those 12 men and turn them into him. OK. As much as humanly possible that they could be like Christ and followers of Christ. What does it mean to be a follower? You know, you're following their example. They're leading and you're doing likewise. Jesus came here to set forth an example unto us. What is a pastor supposed to do? A pastor is supposed to set forth an example that others then can follow. That's why it also makes sense to have qualifications that he's being successful in all the areas that are needful. So that is a good example of the congregation. What about an evangelist? He, too, is going to be an example that others should be following. He's setting forth this example and he's discipling others and training others to be like him. And all the ways that he is doing evangelism. Now, in Acts chapter number eight, look at verse number nine. The Bible says, But there was a certain man called Simon, which before time in the same city used sorcery, in which the people of Samaria, giving out that himself, was some great one, to whom they all gave heed, from the least of the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. So there was this bozo who was basically at first in charge of these people and he was telling them how great he was. But really, he was a fake. He was a phony. And he ends up getting basically replaced or usurped by Philip, who has the real gospel. It says in verse number 12, But when they believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also, and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done. So you have Philip getting people saved, you have him getting baptized, but now he's kind of usurped Simon's role. And everybody's kind of following Philip and Philip's leading and Simon ends up basically becoming kind of envious of this following and desiring this position that Philip has now basically taken upon him. But it shows that he's what? He's kind of training and he's kind of leading and discipling. In fact, Simon, you know, you might think at first is going to be on the right track to be discipled to end up being back in that position. Because isn't he? He's continuing with Philip. If he's continuing with Philip, what does that mean? He's kind of following Philip, leading a Philip, he's being discipled by Philip. But here's the thing, not everybody that follows their disciples ends up panning out, like Judas. Judas didn't really pan out, did he? And not every disciple is going to always pan out. Not every follower is going to pan out. Sometimes people are in there for the wrong reasons. What was Judas in there for? Money. Now he was unsaved, so he was a really bad example. Simon, he's saved, but he's kind of in it for the glory. He's kind of in it for the fame, and he ends up getting rebuked sharply by Peter and them. And it says in verse 14, Now when the apostles, which were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent in them Peter and John, who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet he was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost. So notice being saved didn't give you this power, you had to be an apostle. And Simon really wants it. Now is Simon just super concerned with the gospel going forward, or reaching people in the ministry, or does he really just want to be in a position of power again? He really just kind of wants to be a noteworthy person, everybody looks to him. He just wants to be a leader without actually being a leader. A genuine leader, a sincere leader. And really these people should be rejected from the ministry. Because notice what Peter says, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. So he's just saying, look, you're just not cut out for this, your heart's just in the wrong place. It says in verse 22, Repent therefore this, thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. Then answered Simon and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me. Now at least Simon gets right to some degree, or realizes like, oh man, I really screwed up. But at the end of the day, he's just not the right person to be put in this position. And how can he have an honest report when for the previous several years, he's been tricking and deceiving the people through sorcery and magic and everything like that. Not really probably the best background put in that kind of position either. Okay, so we kind of see that Simon's not really fit for it. But Philip was there training people, guiding people. But even Philip, he's not necessarily the coup de grace. And he works well with others. He's kind of like the, you know, the assist man. Because he gets all the people saved and baptized and then just lets Peter and John come and clean up. And give everybody the Holy Ghost and give them more power. And you know, notice it didn't upset. It didn't upset Philip. Notice Philip's the legit guy. He got everybody saved. He's the evangelist. He's not begging for this power from the apostles. Okay. But then Simon, he has to have this power. Whereas Simon and Philip are kind of in the same boat, neither of them have that. Neither of them can do that. So we also see the heart of Philip. He's content in the position that he's in. He's not just looking to go to the next stage or the next step. Or he can't wait for the next layer or the next gift or the next path. Like he's just fine just being an evangelist. And you know what? If all he does is just throw alley-oops and his teammate dunks it, he's fine. Because that's all he has. You know, he's just there to do his role. You know, in team sports, you know, in basketball, not everybody can play every position. You know, you kind of need your point guard. You need your center. You need power forward. You need your shooting guards and everything like that. When you don't have a team, you're not going to win very many games. You've got to have all the different positions. You need to have people that can handle the ball. You need people that can shoot the ball. You need people that can rebound the ball. You know, if you don't have one of these really important positions, your team's not as effective. The same exists with the evangelist. You know, you need the evangelist to be the evangelist. You don't need him to be the apostle. And you know what? We don't need the apostles to be the evangelist. We need everybody to do their own role. Okay. And even as a pastor, you know, the pastor is supposed to do the work of an evangelist, but he's not just the evangelist. Because an evangelist is just, you know, getting people saved, getting baptized. There needs to be someone that sticks around and, you know, basically preaches people out the door too. Okay. That's the pastor. He gets the fun job of basically pissing everyone off. Okay. Making people mad and upset at what the Bible has to say. And really it's kind of like the father coming home to basically discipline the children. You know, everybody likes the fun dad. Right. But you know what? If you're going to be a good dad, you discipline too. Okay. Whereas the evangelist, you know, doesn't necessarily have to fit all of those, wear all those hats and do all those things. He needs to really focus on his job and be content with the job that he has. And yet he's still going to do discipleship. It's not that he doesn't disciple. It's just that, you know, he's working well with others. He's assisting and supporting. Go over to Acts 21 for a moment. Here's another example of his discipleship. And here's probably the most important people that the evangelist should disciple. Go back to Acts 21. We've already read this, but I'll read it again. It says in verse 8, Doesn't that show that he was a successful discipler since he had four of his children also turn out to be soul owners, also turn out to be women of integrity and women that would preach the word of God. And so we see an important job here of an evangelist. He's also evangelizing his own family, discipling his own family. OK, getting his family say and not only getting his own family say, teaching them how to be an evangelist, teaching them how to do that same work and to do these same things. Go if you would back to Acts. OK. And I'm going to dancing around just for a moment, but I want to prove these points really clearly. Number one, an evangelist is going to be soul winning. Number two, he's going to be baptizing. Number three is going to be discipling. OK, I'll prove that even more in this chapter. Acts six is when Phillips initially ordained. What happens as a result of that? We'll look at verse number five and the same, please. A whole multitude. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Ghost and Philip and Procurius and a canner and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. And the word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. Notice that the disciples are multiplying as a result of these seven men. Why? Because they're obviously discipling people and making disciples and turning people into more disciples of the Lord. So what we should see with a successful evangelist is someone who's getting people saved, who's getting people baptized. But he's also replicating himself, meaning that he's taking other people and turning them into disciples. OK, now what is a disciple? Go, if you would, to John 13. I'm almost finished this morning, but I want to kind of end on the idea of what that disciple looks like. And I want to make it clear what the evangelist is really doing. You know, the evangelist is a zealous soul winner, is a leader of soul winning. You know, he's going to get people baptized that want to also serve and follow the Lord. And then he's going to also take other people that want to serve the Lord and he's going to help them. He's going to train them. He's going to disciple them on how to be a soul winner, on how to serve the Lord, on how to be a good example unto their families. It says in John chapter 13 in verse 34, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. One of the most important attributes of a disciple is one who loves other people. So if you are going to disciple other people and you're going to make them disciples, what's a really important attribute that you have is just love for other people. You show your love for the lost by soul winning and then you also show your love to the brethren by serving them, by ministering unto them, by doing good unto them. And you know, here's the thing you have to understand about the word love. Love is not reciprocating good for good, it's reciprocating good for evil. And if you want to know anything about ministry, it's the fact that you should never expect to receive back what you give. You should believe and anticipate giving way more than you're ever going to receive back. You should look at it like infants. Your infant, it might give you a smile every once in a while and that's great. But let's be honest, the work and effort you have to put into an infant is not just only worth the smiles. You're giving a lot more than you're receiving back. But why would you do that? Because you love them. Because you have deep care and desire for these children. God's putting natural affection inside of you. And really a parent that doesn't do a lot for their children, it shows a lack of love, doesn't it? You know, a lot of parents will just give them to someone else to babysit, give them someone else to raise, someone else to teach. It shows a lack of love, doesn't it? And a minister, someone that's in charge of a church, he shouldn't shove off his responsibility to someone else to teach them, to train them. That shows that he doesn't really love them. You know, someone that loves them is going to discipline them and teach them and train them and do all the things that are necessary for them. Go to Luke chapter 14, the last place I want you to turn. Luke chapter number 14. And we'll get a little bit better picture of a disciple. So a disciple is one who loves other people. You know, you can't say that you know God if you don't love your brother. How can you say you love God whom you've not seen? You know, when you can't love the brethren that you see in the flesh. That's how you show your love of God is by loving people. The most unloving people towards other people don't love God at all. Don't let them fool you or trick you. That's why the Pharisees are always called hypocrites and they devour widows houses and for pretense, make long prayers. They're not actually praying because they want people to be healed or have blessings of God. They're just praying so that people will be like, man, you prayed such a good prayer and that was such a long prayer. Good job, buddy. You're such a prayer warrior. You know, they just want the praise of men. Whereas a sincere minister is praying in private because he just genuinely cares about people and wants the Lord to bless them. Luke Chapter 14, look at verse 26. If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also. He cannot be my disciple. Notice that a disciple again, we're not talking about being saved. Being saved is easy. Being saved is a free gift. Being a disciple is a full sacrifice, an absolute sacrifice of everything that's precious to you. Including your own family members. Now, again, this is not saying you should actively hate your family members, OK? But what it is saying is in comparison to the Lord, anything that would detract or take away from you serving God, you should reject and choose not that thing and choose the Lord. And it's basically like you're loving the Lord and hating them. OK, and really anything that would take you away from the Lord, you should want to sacrifice in your life. Otherwise, you're just not a disciple. A true disciples, one's willing to sacrifice notices even his own life also. That doesn't mean you hate yourself. No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourished and cherished it. OK, but what it is saying is that even if it were come down to losing my career, my job, my status, my name, you know, my name becomes mud. My career becomes mud. My body becomes mud. You know, just whatever it is that I would say, you know what? So be it if it's if I'm standing on the word of God. And that's what a disciples, a disciple is not one who just inherits all these, you know, the jackpot winner and gets to live in the mansion. No, no, no. The disciples, the one that says I'm willing to give it all up. If I can have Christ, as long as I can be pleasing under the Lord's sight, that's what a real disciple looks like. And what an evangelist is going to do is he's going to show that emulate that in his life so that he can teach others to do the same thing. He can make sacrifices in his life so that other people will be willing to make the same kind of sacrifices. If you don't make any sacrifices, it's going to be hard for others to follow in your example. Look at verse twenty seven. Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sent an ambussage and desire conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever be of you that forsaken not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Notice that a disciple is one who puts it all on the line and says, no turning back. I've decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. You know, it's easy to sing. It's hard to do. And we think about the evangelist. You know, you know, I don't believe that any appointment, whether that be pastor, deacon or evangelist, is a lifelong appointment. You have to stay qualified in that role. But you as a person should decide it's a lifelong. You should say, you know what, for me, I'm as long as the Lord doesn't make me a castaway, I'm making this a lifelong appointment until the Lord calls me to do something different. You know, and again, not to say that you couldn't change position or, you know, retire or something theoretically, but that you're you're committed to this for life, whatever position that is, whatever role that God has given you. And when it comes to an evangelist for this church, you know, it's my vision for brother for to be the evangelist of this church until it has its pastor. OK, whatever, whenever that happens. And you know what? That doesn't preclude brother for from becoming a pastor of this church or another church in the future. It also doesn't preclude any other person from becoming the pastor of this church. But he's filling a role to what reach people the gospel. This area needs the gospel. And this area needs people to get baptized. And it needs people to also be discipled and to have a good example of someone that's discipling others and leading others in the ways of the Lord and is saying, you know what? I'm committed to serving God. I'm deciding that my life, you know, I want to lay it down and I want to pick up my cross and I want to follow the Lord and I want to serve the Lord. And you know what? Praise God for men that are willing to do that. Praise God for men that would be willing to lay down their life and say, I'm going to pick up a cross and I want to follow Jesus. And God willing, it would be a lifelong appointment of serving the Lord wherever you find yourself, wherever the Lord whisked you away. But that, you know, the Lord would just bless that role and bless that job. And I want to continue seeing men ordained as evangelists, deacons and pastors in the future. Let's let's close the word of prayer real quick. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us evangelists and thank you for giving us a clear direction in the Bible for the evangelists. I pray that the evangelists of Steadfast Baptist Church, they would have a zeal for soul winning, that you would just give them incredible amounts of wisdom, that they'd be able to open their mouths boldly to to judge rightly and to not fear what man could do, but rather fear the Lord and preach the gospel with power. And I pray that you would help them to baptize many, that they would also turn people to righteousness, that they would disciple people and they would be a good example unto others. And I pray that you would just bless this church as we continue to do the work of the Lord, that you would send us more men and that we could put them into the service. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. At this time, I'm going to have Brother Fur come up here and I'm going to pray one more time and I'm just going to ordain him specifically as the evangelist of this church. And then we'll sing our final song here. So we'll come up here. Y'all can pray with me. Thank you Heavenly Father for Brother Fur. I pray that you would just bless him in this new role as being an evangelist of the church here at Steadfast Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. I pray that you would just help him as he goes out to preach the gospel, that you would go out before him, that you would be a shield unto him, that you would just protect him and his family, that you would just help encourage them and strengthen them, that you would give him boldness to open his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. I pray that you would also help him as he tries to baptize and to fill the entire Great Commission, that you would give him wisdom to preach the word of God and to be a great disciple. I pray that you would just bless his wife, that you would bless his marriage, that you would bring them closer together, that you would strengthen both of them. I pray that you would bless his children, that they would all be saved and they would come to the knowledge of the truth, that he would be a great leader unto them and help them to also be evangelists and to preach the word of God. I pray that any attacks or the enemy that's out there, that you would just help strengthen the Fur family, that you would just protect them, that you would send an army of angels just to be with them, and that you would just have the people of this church and the people in their lives as their hearts would be knit unto the Fur family. They'd come alongside them. They'd want to follow them, follow their example. And I just thank you, Lord, for sending men that are willing to go into your harvest. I pray that you would just bless Brother Fur and all the other men that come along this path, that they would just be disciples of you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Congratulations. I also have something for you here. Here's a certificate of his ordination. Let's all give him a round of applause. Congratulations. All right. Let's go to our last song. Brother Cameron, 167. All hail the power of Jesus' name. 167. Let's sing it out nice and loud and just celebrate evangelists for all right. 167. All hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels cross great fall. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him. Lord of all. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him. Lord of all. He chosen seed of Israel's grace, He ransomed from the fall. Hail Him who saves you by His wrist and crown Him. Lord of all. Hail Him who saves you by His wrist and crown Him. Lord of all. Let every kindred, every tribe on this terrestrial ball, to Him all majesty ascribe and crown Him. Lord of all. To Him all majesty ascribe and crown Him. Lord of all. Both have His yonder sacred throne. We at His feet may fall. We'll join the everlasting Son and crown Him. Lord of all. We'll join the everlasting Son and crown Him. Lord of all.