Eternal Impact Bible Studies

ETERNAL IMPACT 1. FROM FOUNDATION TO MISSION

The name of this study is Eternal Impact. Many things make an impact in our world today. Name some of them. List these. How big is the impact of each? How long does that impact last? What do you think makes the greatest impact? What makes an eternal impact?

1. Talk about a time you were physically lost. How did you feel? What did you do?

Have you used maps from the Internet to help you know each turn to take to reach your destination? Did this increase your confidence in reaching your destination on time? Have you ever used a GPS (global positioning system) when you drive? How does such a system change your confidence about going to a place you’ve never been before?

The New Testament book of Acts is God’s road map for the church to accomplish God’s goal of reaching all people in every nation on earth with the good news of Jesus Christ. With God’s guidebook, Acts and other books in the Bible, we can work with confidence in leading and growing our churches.

2. Read Matthew 16:13-19.

The Church’s One foundation is…. 1 Corinthians 3:11 because no one can lay any other foundation than what has been laid—that is, Jesus Christ.

What do the words of these verses say about Peter’ question and Jesus’ response? How would you apply these verses to the church today?

3. Pull your keys out of your pocket or purse. What do they represent? Perhaps they mean ownership of a car or home or business or part ownership as you partner with a lending institution. Or they may mean permission to enter someone else’s home or business. Inverse 19, what is the significance of the “keys of the kingdom”? Who has them? Who owns the kingdom? Who has permission to use them? What responsibility comes with the permission given to holders of the keys?

4. List types of power.

Recall a time when you “lost power:’ How did you feel? What did you do?

Read Daniel 7:16; Matthew 7:29; 8:9; 28:18-20; and Ephesians 3:8-11.

What is the source of a Christian’s power? What power did Jesus have while on earth? How are Christians today to access and use that power?

5. What divides churches today?

Read Matthew 24:14; 28:18-20; Acts 2:44-47; 4:12; and 2 Peter 3:9. What mission should unify the church? If someone were to look at the budget, schedule, and priorities of your church, would they conclude that it exists primarily to complete the discipling of the nations? What is your church’s plan for discipling the nations?

 

 

ETERNAL IMPACT 2. FROM JERUSALEM TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
What is the greatest distance you have ever travelled from the place where you were born? What was the purpose of your journey? In what ways did you represent Christ during your travels?
1. Read Acts 1:3. The “convincing proofs” (NASB) that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s only Son are His resurrection appearances. What was the convincing proof that led you to belief in Jesus? How have you shared that convincing proof with others?
2. Read Luke 24:45-47 and Acts 1:4-8. What role did obedience have among Jesus’ followers after He was gone? What is the evidence of their obedience? What are the expectations for Christ followers today in obeying God’s Word and Jesus’ commands? What is the evidence of believers’ obedience today?

3. Read Acts 2:1-4. Where were Jesus’ followers when they received the power of the Holy Spirit? When has your church experienced the Holy Spirit’s power? What happened in individual lives? What happened to the church as a whole?

4. Read Joel 2:27-32 and Acts 2:17. In our post-Pentecost era, the power of God’s Holy Spirit is available to all who call Jesus Lord and Saviour. Do you see God’s power being poured out in the world today? Why or why not?

5. Acts 2:32. Peter witnessed Jesus’ resurrection. He was there to see the risen Christ. We know this is true from what Peter and the other disciples told us. But we also know because of God’s grace and work in our own lives, bringing together what God has done throughout history and what He is doing in our lives today. What is your message, your witness, based on — historical events when Jesus came to earth, your own salvation experience, and what God is doing in your life today?

6. If you could do anything you wanted to do to serve God, what would you do? What prevents you? What can you do about this?

7. Where are you seeing God at work in others lives?

Pray that each person present will hear and obey God’s call to tell someone about Jesus this week.

Make Your Life Count

S.M. Lockridge and the sum of it all

If you would like me to speak at your church or VBS…

ring 8082232967

Steve’s SBC Itinerary

May 31 Bama Park Mission, Lake Martin Baptist Church
June 1 and 2 1st Baptist Church Covington La
June 3 1st Baptist Church Alexander City, 6th Street Baptist Church
June 4 Hueytown Baptist Church
June 5 interview Alabama Baptist
June 6 New Salem Baptist Church
June 7 1st Baptist Church Dadeville, Wayside Baptist Church
June 8th Pastors Association Meeting, Beulah Baptist Church
June 9th Pastors Luncheon 1st Baptist Church Alexander City
June 10th TV Station Interview, Orr Street baptist Church
June 11
June 12
June 13 Zion Hill VBS, Old Providence VBS
June 14 New Beginning Baptist Church, Hillabee Baptist Church
June 15
June 16
June 17 Lake Martin VBS
June 18
June 19
June 20
June 21 Bama Park Mission
June 22-24 Southern Baptist Convention

Answers 1-3

Session 1

The Great Adventure

You will—

discover what it means to be a disciple maker;
realize the need our world has for Christ;

identify key elements of the Great Commission Christ gave us;
describe goals and benefits of FAITH training;

outline a process for enlisting prayer partners;
look with expectancy toward the changes God will bring through obedience to Him.

The Great Adventure

God is inviting you to go on a great adventure with Him.

Being a disciple maker
Being a fisher of men

Being salt and light
Being an ambassador

Discipleship is about developing a lifelong—really an eternal— relationship with God.

As we come to know God more intimately, we learn that His desire is for us to tell others what we have found.

We are tell what we know and what we have seen. That is what being a witness is all about.

The Need

Jesus responded to the need by leaving the glory of heaven, taking on the form of a human, and sacrificing Himself in the cruelest of ways so that we could have forgiveness of our sin.

In our world today people live and die without hope.

It is estimated that 75 percent of the current U.S. population is lost without Christ.

Every hour in the United States, 214 people die without Christ.

The Good News

People are seeking to discover the truth about spiritual things.
Jesus gave us the charge to engage with the unchurched.

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20).

The Great Commission serves as our marching orders as Christians.
Making disciples—going, baptizing, and teaching—is the backbone of our mission as a church and as individual believers.

The assignment gave was for each of us to seek to share Jesus with others; to see them make a commitment to Him; and then to walk alongside them, showing them the ropes of the Christian life.

Two important promises:

We will have His power.
We will have His presence. This is the Holy Spirit.

Power over Our Fears

One purpose of FAITH is to help you know what words to share and to gain confidence in God so that you can overcome your fears about witnessing.

Some fear is good because it reminds us of the importance of what we are about to do and forces us to depend on God.

If we make ourselves available, He will use us in ways we never could have imagined.
Your team leader will mentor you.

You will go out each week to represent Christ, your church, and your Sunday School class or small group.
You serve as a link between your Sunday School and your community.

The ultimate goal of FAITH is to help Christians become disciple makers, equipped to introduce others to Christ and then help them begin to mature as Christians and ultimately become disciple makers themselves.

The Source of Power

One element essential to success in witnessing is prayer.
We need prayer partners.

Recruit at least two prayer partners. Your Sunday School class or other small group

Your home Church friends New believers

2. Share expectations.
Ask them to hold you accountable for sharing with people daily.

3. Set aside a regular time to pray.
4. Ask them to commit to pray for you.
5. Ask if you can call your prayer partners before leaving the church for visits. Your prayer partners can pray by name for the person(s) your team is schedule to visit.

6. Look for opportunities to involve prayer partners in ways other than prayer.

You will build relationships that will continue after FAITH training is complete.
You will be encouraged to know that these prayer partners are supporting all of your training and witnessing efforts.

Join the Crew

There is a big difference between the lives of those who have been trained to share their faith and those who have not.

Research indicates a 50 percent possibility that you will develop a friendship this year with an unchurched person and engage him or her in an ongoing dialogue about spiritual things, including salvation.

The difference you make will have eternal significance.
You will impact heaven by helping others find the way.

2. You will impact your world.
3. You will make a difference in your church.

At least one more person will be changed as a result of FAITH training: that person is you.

Session 2 Moving Toward Spiritual Dialogue

Moving Toward Spiritual Dialogue

Jesus is your greatest role model for initiating and directing spiritual conversations.
Jesus was intentional in His approach.

Looking for Opportunities

Staying in tune with the Father enabled Jesus to identify the person’s true spiritual need.

We can ignore them, or we can enjoy the divine appointment God has placed in our lives.

We can intentionally place ourselves in positions where we can have dialogue with lost people.

Search for common areas of interest.

2. Keep an inquisitive mind.

• Ask questions with genuine curiosity as you search for the many qualities that make this person special.

3. Listen for what the person already knows about spiritual matters.

It is important that you discover ways lost persons are connected.

4. Discover details about a person’s church background.

You can discover helpful information about the person’s spiritual condition by the way that person views past church relationships.

5. Let your friend talk.
If you let people talk, they will eventually reveal some struggles.

6. Ask for clarification.

If you are uncertain about what someone is saying, ask questions for clarification.

Two Skills to Master

1. Ask open-ended questions.
2. Let people tell their stories.

Special Tools to Incorporate in a Conversation

Your Sunday School/ small-group testimony
Friends and support

Special Tools to Incorporate in a Conversation

Help in times of need
Opportunities to learn and apply God’s Word

Growth as a Christian
An opportunity to make a difference in others’ lives

2. Your evangelistic story Preconversion experience:
Select a time in your life that illustrates what it was like without the assurance of heaven.

Be as specific as possible.
Keep this part of the story to one minute or less.

Conversion experience:

You may want to use the statement “I had a life-changing experience” to describe your conversion.

The purpose is to create a desire in the person to know how to have heaven.

Recent benefits of conversion:

Share statements and recent events that reflect God’s forgiveness in your life.

Close your testimony with a statement of assurance.
This part of your evangelistic story should be less than one minute.

The Key Question

You are seeking to find a way to introduce discussion about Jesus.

The Key Question is a nonthreatening question that asks for an opinion, thus opening the door for more dialogue and, hopefully, the FAITH gospel presentation.

In your personal opinion, what do you understand it takes for a person to go to heaven and have eternal life?

This question serves as the launching pad for the FAITH gospel presentation.

1. A faith answer
2. A works answer
3. An unclear answer
4. No opinion

Making the Transition

Make a transition to the gospel presentation by saying, “I’d like to share with you what I discovered in the Bible about that question if it is all right.”

If the person says no, leave the door open for future contact.
Be sensitive when making this transition.

When Making a Home Visit

Look for clues about the family when you arrive.

Identify yourself as being from your church.
Make sure you know the full name of the person.

Introduce the team members visiting with you.
Clarify the reason you are making this visit.

Express interest in the things important to the person.
As often as possible and appropriate, call persons by name.

Getting Beyond the City Limits

Could one reason we have difficulty sharing Jesus with others be that we have lost our love for Him?

God expects us to have a love relationship with Him, one that is alive and growing.

Then we will always be ready to talk about Him and what He has done for us.

Session 3 Finding Connection Points

Finding Connection Points

The issue is finding a way to connect with people, intersecting their lives for the purpose of representing God’s love and concern.

In assigned FAITH visits and Opinion Polls, your team leader takes the lead until you are ready.

Preparing for a Visit

Gather as much information as possible before going out.
Establish the purpose of your visit.

Some visits are fact-finding missions.
Your team may be going to initiate some ministry actions.

Your team may simply be called on to represent God and His love.

3. Designate a point person.

Making a Visit

Always begin by introducing yourself and your team members.
As you begin your conversation, seek to validate information you have been given.

As you ask questions, listen.

As they share, explore ways your team can facilitate personal connections
5. End all visits by offering to pray.
6. Debrief the visit in the car.
7. Do what you said you would do.

Types of FAITH Visits

2. A follow-up visit
If your team has led someone to Christ, you have the privilege and responsibility to help that new believer learn to walk as a Christian.

3. A baptism visit
The same team that has the privilege of leading someone to Christ helps the new Christian begin to grow in faith and obedience.

4. A ministry visit
Made to someone who is already a member of Sunday School or a small group

Creates a catalyst for unchurched individuals to connect to Sunday School
May be the point at which a member reconnects to Sunday School

Ministry visits:

To absentees
To nonattenders
To persons with special ministry needs

5. An Opinion Poll visit
God uses people to build bridges with this simple tool.
Opinion Poll visits are a team effort.

Opinion Poll:

1. Make sure the following roles have been assigned to team members.
The spokesperson

The recorder
Someone will pray.

2. The spokesperson is prepared to state the purpose of this brief survey: to help our church be more responsive to needs in our community. The team quests permission to ask the person a few questions.

3. Team members listen for clues about spiritual needs or interests, talk about interests
and church involvement, and follow up on responses to the Key Question.

4. If the person declines, be kind and respectful.
5. At the conclusion of the visit, always offer to pray for the person.

6. Once the survey is complete, the recorder should record as much information as possible.

Opinion Poll reality:

If someone is not at home
If the individual does not want to participate

If the person has time to answer only the first two questions

If he or she asks what will happen with the recorded information
If someone responds in an antagonistic fashion

Developing Relationships

Jesus frequently engaged people in a discussion of spiritual matters.

He established common ground.
He made a transition to spiritual matters.

We can follow Jesus’ example by starting where lost persons are, by showing that we care about them, and by developing relationships with them

We can do what Matthew did by creating opportunities to introduce lost persons to Jesus.

Becoming Intentional in Approach

1. Meet physical and emotional needs.
2. Value the unchurched as people.

3. Devote time and resources to reaching the lost.
4. Seek to understand how non-Christians think and feel.

5. Rely on God for boldness in witnessing.
6. Make unbelievers feel that they are welcome.

7. Show acceptance by not judging.
8. Make it easy for non-Christians to explore their beliefs.

9. Lead lost persons to a time of commitment.
10. Be a real person.

We must intentionally create opportunities to introduce lost persons to Jesus in the context of caring relationships.

Our responsibility is to be obedient in going and making disciples.
When we are faithful to obey Christ’s command, we are successful.

Answers 4-6

Session 4 F Is for Forgiveness

F Is for Forgiveness

Everyone has sinned and needs God’s forgiveness.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”Romans 3:23

God’s forgiveness is in Jesus only.

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” Ephesians 1:7

Lostness describes someone’s condition more than his or her destination.

All humanity was created to be in relationship with God.

We are separated from God by sin.

When God forgives us, He forgets our sin, never to bring it up again.

The New Testament depicts forgiveness as coming from God, constantly needed, granted when requested, and based on the saving act of Christ.

By using the word forgiveness for the letter F, you have the opportunity to remind people of their need for forgiveness and to establish the fact that only God can provide it. Everyone has sinned and needs God’s forgiveness.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”Romans 3:23

God’s forgiveness is in Jesus only.

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” Ephesians 1:7

Everyone Has Sinned and Needs God’s Forgiveness

Our need for forgiveness is set against the backdrop of Jesus.

His life exemplified perfection and purity in every way.

No one can obtain that standard and is therefore already a condemned person.

This judgment also comes as a result of someone’s unbelief—the rejection of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

Sin results in broken fellowship with God.

Anything that disturbs, distorts, or breaks this fellowship is sin.

Jesus forcefully taught that sin is more a condition of the heart than a specific, visible action.

God’s Forgiveness Is in Jesus Only

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches
of His grace.” Ephesians 1:7

God’s forgiveness is found in Jesus only.

Forgiveness is not based on what we have done, how good we are, or how sincere we are.

Forgiveness is based on the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for our sins when He died on the cross.

The price of sin is death.

By being fully human and fully divine, Jesus met the requirement of being a perfect sacrifice.

The shedding of Jesus’ blood accomplished our redemption.

God’s forgiveness is an act of grace.

Opportunities for Continued Dialogue

Wasn’t there another way?

Why do I need forgiveness?

Sins of commission

Sins of omission

Secret sins

Getting Personal

As a believer you can quit beating yourself up for your past.

We also have a responsibility to follow the lead of our Heavenly Father; if God is in the business of forgiving, then so are His followers.

Session 5 A Is for Available

A Is for Available

God’s forgiveness is available for all.

“God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16

God’s forgiveness is available but not automatic.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 7:21

The Alls of the Great Commission

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20).

The Alls of the Great Commission

Jesus began by saying that all authority or power is given to Him.

Christ told us to go and make disciples of all nations.

We are to teach people to do all things Christ commanded us to do.

He is with us always—at all times and in all places.

The practice of being a disciple and making disciples is a lifestyle and an attitude, not an event
or a once-a-week activity.

Good News: God’s Forgiveness Is Available for All!

God’s forgiveness is available for all.

“God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

Jesus was the perfect gift.

All humans were created to have fellowship with God.

Our sin wouldn’t allow us to have a relationship with God, so the gift of Jesus met our need for forgiveness.

God’s Forgiveness Is Not Automatic

God’s forgiveness is available but not automatic.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.”Matthew 7:21

It is much easier to understand that God’s forgiveness is available for all than to recognize that His forgiveness is not automatic.

God wants all people to accept His forgiveness.

Not everyone will choose to accept it.

It is not about religion or keeping a set of rules.

It is about an intimate love relationship with Him.

Regaining Our Focus on the Lost

If we ever really understand that people are not automatically granted salvation apart from accepting Jesus, we will sense a greater urgency in being a witness.

Opportunities forContinued Dialogue

Won’t everyone be saved?

The idea that everyone will eventually gain heaven is called universalism.

In reality Christianity is inclusive. God offered the opportunity for forgiveness for all.

Even so, Christianity is exclusive in that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father and heaven.

2. How can a loving God send someone to hell?

At the core of this issue is a faulty understanding of God.

The God of the Bible is the personal Creator who is worthy of human worship because of His holy nature and His perfect love, revealed in creating the universe, electing and redeeming His people, and providing eternal salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.

God is—

the only true God;

the living God;

Lord and Master;

holy;

eternal;

spirit;

love;

Father;

intimate and personal;

glorious;

wise;

all-powerful;

righteous.

All the character traits of God work together in perfect balance.

The real question is, How can a perfect God have a relationship with someone who is imperfect and rebellious?

Jesus didn’t come to lead people to hell.

He came to rescue them from hell.

God’s desire is for every person to be saved.

Getting Personal

The gospel is for everyone.

Unless you understand and believe that God’s love is available for each person, including each person with whom you come in contact, you have missed the full impact of God’s forgiveness.

Session 6 I Is for Impossible

I Is for Impossible

According to the Bible, it is impossible to get to heaven on our own.

“By grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

So how can a sinful person have eternal life and enter heaven?

People have limitations.

All people have fallen short of God’s expectations.

It is impossible for us to attain heaven and eternal life on our own.

On Our Own, Heaven Is Impossible

The Bible says it is impossible for someone to go to heaven by their own effort or to stand in God’s presence by their own merit.

Because of who God is

Because of who we are

Because God is perfect, He cannot allow sin or unredeemed sinners in His presence.

Sin separates us from God.

The Impossible Made Possible

According to the Bible, it is impossible to get to heaven on our own.

“By grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

As you begin to show the way God has made possible the impossible—through the forgiveness of sin and a personal relationship with the sovereign God of the universe—you offer restoration, hope, and blessing for the present as well as for eternity.

1. By God’s grace

2. You are saved

3. Through faith

4. Not of yourself

5. It is God’s gift

6. Not from works

7. So that no one can boast

So how can a sinful person have eternal life and enter heaven?

Opportunities for Continued Dialogue

Respond to the claim that we can achieve heaven.

Everyone has sinned in some way and is incapable of being good enough to achieve heaven.

2. Be sensitive to seeker signals.

Asking questions

Attending church

Reading the Bible or religious books

Viewing or listening to Christian media

Participating in Christian social activities

Getting Personal

It is virtually impossible for unsaved persons to be open to the gospel until they understand that they are sinners who need redemption.

Be very careful when you are sharing I is for impossible that you do not come across as judgmental.

Because it is God’s salvation, He gets the credit.

Answers 7-9

Session 7 T Is for Turn

Question: If you were going down the road and someone asked you to turn, what would he or she be asking you to do? (Change direction)

Turn means repent.

T Is for Turn

Turn away from sin and self.

“Unless you repent, you will all perish as well!” Luke 13:3

Turn to Jesus alone as your Savior and Lord.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”John 14:6

Here is the greatest news of all.

“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Romans 10:9-10

The Scriptural Picture of Turning

Our choice is a simple one: we can keep trusting ourselves and living the way we are living, or we can give our lives to Christ and begin to follow Him.

Turning to God has been, is, and will always be the only hope anyone has.

Changing Direction

Question: If you were going down the road and someone asked you to turn, what would he or she be asking you to do? (Change direction)

Turn means repent.

You are trying to help them understand the need to change direction in their lives or to get on the right path.

To turn means to repent or to admit that one is a sinner.

We are to turn—repent—change the direction of our lives.

Turn from sin and self.

Turn away from sin and self.

“Unless you repent, you will all perish as well!”

Luke 13:3

2. A question about the destiny of those who never hear about Jesus

Although God wants everyone to be saved, His justice, righteousness, and holiness demand that He judge the sin of those who do not accept His offer of salvation.

People will be held accountable for the revelation they have received.

God’s judgment of each person will be fair and balanced.

2. Turn to Jesus alone.

Turn to Jesus alone as your Savior and Lord.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”John 14:6

As much as a person may want or try, he or she will not find multiple roads leading to heaven.

There is only one way, and that way is Jesus.

He is the way—

by His doctrine;

by His example;

by His sacrifice;

by His Spirit.

He is the truth—

in opposition to all false religions;

in contrast to the Mosaic law;

in respect to all the promises of God.

He is the life—

that saves from death;

that destroys death’s power;

as the One who gives life.

The Greatest News of All

Here is the greatest news of all.

“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Romans 10:9-10

Confess with your mouth.

Confession involves the confession of sin and the confession of faith.

We are to change our allegiance from trusting self and choosing sin, and we are to confess our new allegiance of trusting and following Christ.

2. Believe in your heart.

To believe in someone
is more than believing facts about them; it is a commitment of one person to another.

When someone believes in Jesus, that person is confessing allegiance to Him.

This relationship is one of love that is built on trust and dependence.

Faith is the acceptance of Christ’s lordship or absolute authority over our lives.

Those who confess and believe will be saved.

Being saved or salvation is the saving of a life from eternal death.

What happens if a person is willing to repent of their sins and confess Christ?

Celebrating the Turn

When the lost are found, celebration occurs in heaven.

Thank God for allowing you to have a role in accomplishing His Great Commission.

Opportunities for Continued Dialogue

Misconceptions about Jesus

Someone who trusts Jesus is expressing belief that He is who He says He is—the Son of God and the only One who is able to save.

Getting Personal

Because Christians are not immune to temptation, turning away from sin is a continual necessity for a believer.

Being a witness is a 24-7 thing.

God has a purpose for intersecting our lives with others.

We have to turn our backs on the temptations that come our way and continually turn to Christ in faith and dependence.

Session 8 H Is for Heaven

What happens if a person is willing to repent of their sins and confess Christ?

H Is for Heaven

Heaven is a place where we will live with God forever.

“If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also.”John 14:3

Eternal life begins now with Jesus.

“I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance.”John 10:10

H can also stand for how.

How can a person have God’s forgiveness, eternal life, and heaven?

By trusting Jesus as your Savior and Lord.

Looking Forward

God, who resides in heaven, invites the redeemed to live forever in His presence.

Heaven is the epitome of beauty, glory, and joy.

It is best understood as the place where God’s holy presence dwells.

H Is for Heaven Heaven is a place where we will live with God forever.

“If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back
and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also.”John 14:3

Jesus’ use of the term paradise conveys the idea of enjoying the company of our Creator.

Heaven is—

a literal place;

God’s dwelling place;

where Jesus lives in bodily form;

eternal.

Heavenly life is an eternal time of joy, celebration,
and fellowship with God.

Heaven is the place of God’s throne and eternal presence.

Heaven is the future home of believers.

All who have died in the Lord are there.

Heaven is without the presence of sin.

Multitudes of angels are in heaven praising God and attending Him.

No darkness is in heaven.

Pain, suffering, and sorrow are not known in heaven.

Heaven is the place where a believer’s inheritance is kept with care until the revelation of the Messiah.

The Reality of Hell

Hell is a literal place.

It is described as a place of constant fire and torment.

This is where those who reject God’s gift of salvation will spend eternity—away from God’s presence, fellowship, and care.

The reality of heaven and hell

The reality of judgment demands that there be a place available for those who have a guilty sentence passed on them.

The Bible indicates that creation has purpose and is headed somewhere.

Enjoying a Bit of Heaven Now

You were created to live in complete fellowship with God and to enjoy being His most prized creation.

Eternal life begins now with Jesus.

“I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance.”John 10:10

Abundant life is complete, full, and lived to its highest potential and beyond our expectations.

An abundant life is living a life directed by God.

Abundant life with Christ begins on earth now.

We have been set free and are no longer condemned.

We are made heirs of God and are thus able to share
in His glory.

The Holy Spirit bears fruit in a believer’s life.

The Holy Spirit is the pledge of a believer’s participation
in heaven.

We are made new creations and are reconciled to God.

We are made alive in Christ and are brought close to Him.

We can grow in a relationship with Christ and can know His power and fellowship.

We can have hope.

Help people understand that Christianity isn’t about simply avoiding hell but that it is about being the new creation God created us to be.

How? Making the Transition

The letter H can also stand for how—how God took the initiative to save us through the death of His Son, Jesus,
and how a person can have God’s forgiveness and eternal life in heaven.

How can a person have God’s forgiveness, eternal life, and heaven?

Understanding what we have shared, would you like to receive this forgiveness by trusting in Christ as your personal Savior and Lord?

With this question the conversation moves into the Invitation—when someone has the opportunity to receive personally the truth you have shared.

Getting Personal

The thought of a better place should be a source of motivation to serve God every day of our lives.

Session 9 The Invitation

Inquire
Understanding what we have shared, would you like to receive this forgiveness by trusting in Christ as your personal Savior and Lord?

Invite

Insure

We will learn how to introduce the idea of a response to the good news and how to use a leaflet to help you invite a response.

A Life-Changing Decision

Salvation is a life-changing decision.

The decision is even more than deciding to believe certain things about Jesus and God; it is about placing trust in Jesus and living a life that is worthy of His commendation.

Leading to a Response

H can also stand for how.

How can a person have God’s forgiveness, eternal life, and heaven?

By trusting Jesus as your Savior and Lord.

You may want to add a follow-up question.

“Is that something you would like to do?”

“Have you ever thought about making this kind of commitment?”

Let the person respond.

Ask God to help you know what to do next.

Talk about the issue(s) that appear to create difficulty.

Allow time for him or her to think and talk about what you have shared.

Do not rush them or appear pushy.

At times it may be necessary to continue the conversation on another day.

Only God knows what tomorrow holds and how forceful you should be when leading a person to make
a decision for Christ.

Continue to depend on the Holy Spirit, listening to Him every step of the way as you share.

A Tool to Help SomeoneTake a Step of Faith

Front panel:

The picture helps people express personal thoughts
and feelings about Jesus.

Call attention to—

Jesus on the cross;

the different people and the contemporary clothing;

the wide range of emotions;

the mallets and spikes.

“Whom do you think the people in this picture represent?”

“Of the people in this picture, which one best represents you?”

It is about the individual gaining an image of the meaning of Christ’s death and the love He expressed in that death.

Panels 2–4:

Review the FAITH outline.

Clarify the meaning of turning to Christ and so changing the total direction of one’s life.

Panel 4:

Reviewing panel 4 and the meanings of heaven, including that H also stands for how, may give you the joy and opportunity of leading someone to make a personal commitment to Christ.

Your main goal is to ask the inquiry question.

Inquire

Understanding what we have shared, would you like
to receive this forgiveness by trusting in Christ as your personal Savior and Lord?

Leading Someone to Ask God for Forgiveness

By inviting someone to accept Christ, you have the opportunity both to share the good news and to lead
a person to pray to receive Christ.

Leading someone to pray
a prayer of salvation becomes a meaningful expression of that person’s decision to accept God’s offer of forgiveness and salvation and to begin following Christ.

Ask, “Does this prayer reflect what you want to do?”

State, “If you want to make this commitment, tell God what you are thinking and what you want to do. Or use this printed prayer as a guide.”

If the person asks for God’s forgiveness, celebrate with him.

Encourage him and reinforce what he has just done.

Panel 6:

The Commitment Card allows you to walk the person through three types of commitments.

Lead the person to check the box and to write the date and place of his or her decision for Christ.

2. Move to the next statement about taking next steps
of faith and obedience.

3. Highlight the benefits of a caring Bible study group. Invite the person to allow you to enroll him or her in a class.

Panel 7:

Record information about the person’s decision(s).

Panel 5:

Call attention to “Next Steps in Following Jesus.”

Leave the remainder of the leaflet with the person as a memento of this life-changing decision.

In closing the visit, pray a prayer of thanksgiving with the new believer.

Leading to a DecisionWithout a Leaflet

Review the how subpoint in the letter H.

Help the person understand the necessity of realizing that
he is a sinner, of asking God for forgiveness, of repenting from his sins, and of acknowledging Jesus’ death and resurrection as the only way to be saved.

Insure

Review the Scripture passages in the FAITH outline.

Share your testimony.

Point to the Commitment Card panel in A Step of Faith.

Ask the individual to explain in his own words the commitments just made.

Pray a prayer of thanksgiving.

Encourage him to review the leaflet.

Offer to follow up in the next few days.

Answers 10-12

Session 10

They Accepted Jesus; Now What?

When believers lead people to Christ, we are responsible for them as their spiritual parent.
Jesus told us to make disciples, not just converts.

The ultimate goal for a person who comes to Christ is to grow up in the Lord and become a spiritual parent, leading others to Christ and teaching them how to live.

Defining Moments

For a Christian, baptism is a defining moment.
When we were baptized, we identified ourselves with Jesus and other Christians who had gone before us.

When we have the opportunity to lead someone to Christ, we also have the privilege to help him or her experience the life-defining act of baptism and begin the process of Christian maturity.

Encouraging Baptism

A person may be hesitant to be baptized for a number of reasons.
We have to take people where they are and help them move forward in
their spiritual journey.

Baptism is a step of obedience and not a requirement for salvation.

Making the Follow-Up Visit

Reacquaint yourself and celebrate the person’s decision to accept Christ.
State that baptism is an important next step in being obedient to Christ after salvation.
Share a brief testimony about the significance of baptism.

Introducing Next Steps in Following Jesus

Front panel:

Explain that you will use this leaflet to help the person better understand some next steps of obedience to take as a believer.

Panel 2:

Call attention to the statement that baptism is one way a Christian publicly shares what Jesus has done for us.

Emphasize that baptism is for individuals who— have already trusted Jesus as Savior;

understand that baptism does not bring salvation but is a symbol of what Jesus has already done for them and is an expression of obedience;

are not ashamed to follow Christ’s example.

Panel 3:

Jesus commanded it.
Baptism is an act of obedience for which Jesus Himself, as well as His followers, set the example.

Baptism pictures breaking from the past and beginning a new life with Christ.
In the New Testament baptism is a public testimony of faith.

Baptism is by immersion in water.
Because it is a public expression of faith, baptism is conducted in front of witnesses.

Emphasize the importance of being baptized as soon as possible.
Highlight the importance of being baptized only after willfully accepting Jesus as Savior.

Stress the importance of baptism as a point of identity with other church members.

Answer the person’s questions about the reasons for and logistics of baptism.
Explain how baptism is done in your church.

Some churches and FAITH teams show support by accompanying the new believer into the baptismal pool.

Find out whether the person has a preferred date for the baptismal service.

Panels 6–7:

Record all of the requested information in “Appointment for Baptism” on panels 6 and 7, which you tear off and return to the church.

Panels 4–5:

Show how these disciplines can help the new believer grow in Christ.

Give the leaflet to the person and conclude the visit with prayer.

Panels 6–7:

Return panels 6 and 7 to the person in your church who handles FAITH visitation information.

Growth Is a Process

Some new Christians may fail to show up after making a commitment to come to your Sunday School or worship service.
Your team is still responsible for helping this person grow as a disciple.

Follow up to learn what happened, to offer ministry or counsel, and to make sure the new believer gets off to
a good start in his new life in Christ.

Session 11 Your Role in Kingdom Work

The early church had a number of unsung heroes who quietly made a contribution to the kingdom of God.

Aquila and Priscilla hosted a church in their home, which became a center for showing Jesus’ love to others.

No matter where this couple lived, they made a difference in the lives of others.
They remained faithful to do the work of God’s kingdom.
They always found a way to be involved in a church.

They were true heroes because they focused their lives on Jesus Christ.

This focus was revealed by the assistance they provided Paul and Apollos and by their efforts to reach others with the gospel.

Aquila and Priscilla understood what non-Christians were looking for, and they knew how to build a growing church that met those needs.

What the Unchurched Are Looking for in a Church

Two major factors prompted Donna to try a church:
a crisis in her life and a relationship with someone who was active in the church.

Donna was immediately drawn to a Bible study.

People want a place where they can—

discover the truth;

find connections;

enjoy a variety of experiences;
have an opportunity to make
a difference in the world.

Building a Healthy Church

Most of these characteristics can be seen in the lives of Aquila and Priscilla.
Commitment to the truth of Scripture

Sense of community
Unity

Involved in the work of ministry
Mentors to Apollos

Hosted a church

Worship in their house church

Sunday School and small groups are places where people connect with one another and the ministry of the church, discover the truth of God’s Word, and invite others so that they too can discover God’s truth.

Giving focus to these three things—connect, discover,
and invite—will make your Sunday School and your church a positive force in your community as believers engage in the lives of others.

Stories from the Field

The Bake Team
A Family Reunion
A Community-Service Project

God uses all kinds of settings and circumstances to involve His followers in Kingdom work.

Multiplication comes as a result of God’s work, but
we must also work with
God to bring it about.
Thank God for the role He allows you to play.
Pray and rely on His Holy Spirit to discern where He might lead you in the future.

Session 12 Your Next Step

The test of a leader is his ability to pass on his knowledge and experience to those who will come after him.

Think about ways you can pass on what you have learned to others.

Every believer is responsible to pass on what he or she has learned so that the number of growing, witnessing believers is multiplied.

Sharing What You Have Been Given

“What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).

Three Rs help us better understand what is involved in passing on the things we have learned and experienced.

Receive (learn): “what you have heard from me.”
You are always in a position to learn, especially from God’s Word.

You can never be satisfied in your Christian walk.

God wants you to experience Him daily.

2. Repeat (teach): “commit to faithful men.”
You are already a spiritual leader whom God has entrusted with much.

You must share what you have learned with others who can use their training to reach the lost for Christ.

3. Reproduce (train): “who will be able to teach others also.”

Sharing the truth of the Word is important, but it is also important to prepare others to share the truth and to teach others to do the same.
This is what making disciples is all about.

To make disciples, Jesus’ followers must multiply our lives through the lives of others.

Stewards of a Gift

Paul reminded Timothy of the stewardship of his call.
Mentors receive their pay by seeing their pupils succeed and continue the cycle, mentoring others.

When we receive a gift, certain realities are associated with that gift.

1. We have been entrusted with a great gift.
2. We are given gifts for a purpose or a reason.

3. Purposeful gifts imply a stewardship.

4. Stewardship always carries accountability.

5. Accountability and stewardship affect areas unrelated to the gift.

What Can I Offer?

God has entrusted us with many great gifts.
Certain expectations are associated with each one.

What do we have to pass on to the next generation of FAITH participants?

You have something to pass on to the next generation of FAITH learners.
God has given each of us unique experiences and opportunities that only we can share.

Has God allowed you to learn and experience these things for a reason?
Does He want you to pass on to the next generation of FAITH learners the things you have learned?

Many people have yet to be told about Jesus.
Others are waiting to learn how to share Jesus with a friend.

The question is not whether you can help but whether you will help.

AXIOMS FOR A GREAT COMMISSION RESURGENCE Acts 1:4-8 By Daniel L. Akin

 

 

Introduction: 1) Following His resurrection Jesus spent time with His disciples for 40 days preparing them for their assignment once He had ascended.  He led them out to Mount Olivet where He would return back to the Father.  However, just prior to His ascension, the disciples wanted to have a theological conversation concerning matters of eschatology.  Specifically they wanted to know, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (v.6). Jesus did not rebuke them for asking what is certainly an interesting question.  His response did, however, indicate that it was not the most important question.  His response reveals that the better question is this, “what should we do until you do come again and establish Your kingdom?” To that question He provides a definitive answer in the Acts version of the Great Commission found in verse 8, “Be my witnesses.”  In essence Jesus was saying to His followers, “do not get distracted over issues that are secondary and non-essential. Stay focused on the main thing.  Make sure your priorities line up with the Father’s.  Be my witnesses and advance the gospel until I return.”

2) Like the disciples, Southern Baptists today run the risk of being distracted from the main thing.  Many of the issues we are emphasizing and debating are interesting things, but they are not the most important things.  They don’t line up well with the priorities we find revealed in Holy Scripture.  The result: we are fractured and factionalizing.  We are confused having lost our spiritual compass.  We have reached, many of us believe, what Alvin Reid describes as “a tipping point.”  We have tragically devolved into “a giant movement now in decline,” experiencing far too much ineffectiveness in gospel ministry and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. 

3) How do we change this and experience a much needed course correction?  How do we, by God’s grace and for His glory, get in sync with the Savior’s heart, a heart that cried, “I have come to seek and save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10).  I share, humbly and with no illusion that I have all the answers, 12 axioms, or values, that I believe can move us in the right direction.  Many of these principles are being talked about all across the Southern Baptist Convention, and people get excited and energized when that happens.  The Great Commission has been defined for us in Matthew 28:18-20.  These principles or axioms describe what the implementation of a Great Commission Resurgence for Southern Baptist might look like.

4) It is not too bold to say that both frustration and anticipation is building among our people, and the time is right to put the former behind us and to pursue the latter with a laser beam focus guided and directed by what so many believe God is leading us to embrace.  It is hard to imagine the evil one leading us to intensify our involvement with what the blogging demon Wormwood calls that “cursed Commission!”  I do think all the demons of hell would do all that they can to distract us from it.  What must happen to make us ready for and get us moving in a God sent Great Commission Resurgence?  My agenda is purposefully positive and forward looking.  I share what I pray will be an encouragement to all of us.

I. We must commit ourselves to the total and absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives. (Col. 3:16-17, 23-24)

• Jesus Christ must be our passion and priority. We must aspire to both know Him and love Him more fully. We must long to see Him “come to have first place in everything” (Col. 1:18). To miss this is to miss everything and to never get out of the starting blocks.
• Southern Baptists need to become more than ever “a Jesus intoxicated people,” returning to our first love. (Rev. 2:4-5). A Christ-centered life must, and it will, will inform our theology and inspire our missional service.
• We must love Him, worship Him, adore Him, exult in Him, share Him and exemplify Him. Within the family of Southern Baptists, we have often been described as “people of the Book.” This is a good thing, and it must never be lost. However, if we are indeed a people of the book, then we need to be in love with the person the book points us to: Jesus!
• When the world thinks of us, they should think first, “those are the folks in love with Jesus. They are the people obsessed with Jesus. There is a people that talk and act and serve and love like Jesus. Southern Baptists are Jesus people!”
• We need the ministry of the Holy Spirit to lead us to a new and fresh intimacy and communion with Jesus. This must be first and foremost. Any other agenda is to get the first and most important thing wrong.

II. We must be gospel centered in all our endeavors for the glory of God. (Rom. 1:16)

• The Lordship of Jesus Christ and His gospel is what it is all about. It is why we exist as the people of God.
• Being “gospel centered” means we are “grace centered.” It means loving the people Jesus loves and reaching out to those rejected and even scorned by the Pharisees of our day. Legalism by the Pharisees of our day embedded in our traditions to which we are often blind must be exposed, confessed, and repented of. A gospel-centered agenda can make this happen.
• Being gospel centered means we proclaim His victory over death, hell, the grave, and sin by His substitutionary atonement and glorious resurrection. We must be gospel centered for our justification, our sanctification and our glorification. We must be gospel-centered from beginning to end.
• Pursing in all things the “glory of God” means we will be theocentric and not anthropocentric in our worship and work. The supremacy of God in Christ thru the Spirit in all things must be the engine that drives us.
• A radically gospel-centered life will ensure that the bloody cross of a crucified King is the offense to non-believers not our styles, traditions, legalisms, moralisms, preferences and sourpuss attitudes!
• A radically gospel-centered life will promote a grace-filled salvation from beginning to end putting on display the beauty of the gospel in all of life’s aspects. It will remind us that we do not obey in order to be accepted; we obey because we are accepted by God in Christ!
• Once more an attractive and contagious joy in Jesus will draw people to the Savior whose glory radiates through transformed lives made new in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).
• Too many of our pulpits have jettisoned the proclamation of the gospel. Too many of our people have lost the meaning and therefore the wonder of the gospel. We must get it right once again if we are to experience a Great Commission Resurgence. No gospel, no Great Commission Resurgence. It really is that simple.

III. We must take our stand on the firm foundation of the inerrant and infallible Word of God affirming it’s sufficiency in all matters. (Matt 5:17-18; John 10:35; 17:17; 2 Tim 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

• Southern Baptists won the “battle for the Bible” that began in 1979. Wonderful men of God like Jimmy Draper, Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler, Adrian Rogers, and Jerry Vines spilt their blood and put their ministries on the line because they saw what the poison of liberalism was doing to our Convention and its institution. These men are heroes of the faith and what they did must be honored and never forgotten.
• However, and hear me well, the “war for the Bible” is not over and it will never end until Jesus returns. Launched by Satan in the Garden of Eden, “has God said,” will continue to be under assault, and we must ever be on guard and ready to answer those who question its veracity and accuracy.
• Already, as Greg Beale warns in the book The Erosion of Inerrancy, evangelicals are backing away from or redefining into insignificance the idea of inerrancy. A younger generation of Southern Baptists will eventually face this challenge, and you must not squander away precious theological ground that is absolutely essential to a Great Commission Resurgence.
• Russ Bush was absolutely correct when I heard him say in a seminary classroom in the early 1980’s, “the question of biblical inspiration is ultimately a question of Christological identity.” Why? Because Jesus believed the Holy Scriptures to be the completely true and trustworthy Word of God! Even Rudolf Bultmann said this, he just believes Jesus got it wrong! Well hear me, and hear me well. To deny inerrancy is to say that Jesus was wrong and that you are smarter than He. That is both heresy and blasphemy. It is spiritually suicidal!
• Are you questioning inerrancy? Then repent! Do you deny inerrancy? Then go join another denomination. We will love you and pray for you, but we do not want you infecting our people with a spiritual disease that is always fatal to the Church of the Lord Jesus. Inerrancy and the sufficiency of the Bible in all matters of faith and practice is not up for debate in the Southern Baptist Convention. It alone will give us the necessary weapons to take on and take down what Newsweek (8-13-08) calls “a newly muscular secularism.”

IV. We must devote ourselves to a radical pursuit of the Great Commission in the context of obeying the Great Commandments. (Matt.28:16-20; 22:37-40)

• A devoted follower of Jesus Christ gets excited about 1) reaching the nations for Christ, 2) reaching our nation, the United States of America, for Christ and 3) doing so in a manner that is biblically-theologically sound and driven. Why? Because all three are in the DNA of the Great Commission.
• However, a real Great Commission Resurgence will not only possess Great Commission DNA, it will also be alive with Great Commandment DNA too.
• The ultimate motivation for the Great Commission is love of God and a passion to be on mission with Him. After all the Great Commission is His mission! But, flowing out of love for God, also will be a genuine love for people, something too many of us have lost somewhere along the way. The results have devastated our witness.
• If we don’t love them we have no right to expect them to listen. If we do not serve them we have no reason to expect them to trust us.
• Much could be said here but I will narrow my focus to an area of particular concern. A Great Commission Resurgence is not the same thing as a moral reformation, and it is certainly not a revival of political activism. Now, do not misunderstand. It is our Christian duty to be good citizens, vote our convictions, and promote good and godly policies. The end of slavery, the right of all Americans to vote and Civil Rights legislation quickly and easily come to mind. However, our commission is to promote the gospel and not crawl in bed with the government, political parties and politicians. As John MacArthur so well says, “true Christianity is more concerned with saving souls than it is with gaining votes. . . . Rather than concentrating on political issues and debates, believers should be consumed [emphasis mine] with their responsibility as Christ’s ambassadors” (Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong, p. 122).
• Governmental legislation will not stop the moral plunge of our nation and the world, but the gospel will! Our hope is not in Republicans or Democrats, Congress or Capitol Hill. Our hope, the world’s hope, is in Calvary’s Hill and a crucified and risen Savior named King Jesus. Love for God and love for our neighbor demands that we not get sidetracked by political machinations. Neither Jesus nor His disciples exhausted their time trying to change the government. They spent their time trying to change the souls of men. We must do no less. Do not forget it is Jesus who said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
• If we love Jesus as we should, we will love sinners as we ought and pursue them as He did. We will not condemn them, that is the business of God; we will love them, serve them and tell them of a Savior who cares for their soul. The silence of our gospel witness may be an evidence of the coldness and hardness of our hearts. The Great Commission and the Great Commandments, they always go hand in hand.

V. We must affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a healthy and sufficient guide for building a theological consensus for partnership in the gospel, refusing to be sidetracked by theological agendas that distract us from our Lord’s Commission. (1 Tim. 6:3-4)

• What do we as Southern Baptists agree on doctrinally and theologically? The answer, praise God, is a lot. For example:

- We affirm the inerrancy, infallibility, authority and sufficiency of the Bible.
- We affirm the Triune God who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.
- We affirm God as Creator and reject naturalistic evolution as nonsense.
- We affirm both the dignity and depravity of man.
- We affirm the full deity, perfect humanity and sinlessness of Jesus the Son of God.
- We affirm the penal substitutionary nature of the atonement as foundational for understanding the cross work of our Savior.
- We affirm the good news of the gospel as the exclusive and only means whereby any person is reconciled to God.
- We affirm the biblical nature of a regenerate church witnessed in believer’s baptism by immersion.
- We affirm salvation by grace alone thru faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone.
- We affirm the reception of the Holy Spirit at the moment of regeneration/conversion and the blessing of spiritual gifts for the building up of the body of Christ.
- We affirm the literal, visible and historical return of Jesus Christ to this earth when He will manifest fully His kingdom.
- We affirm the reality of an eternal heaven and an eternal hell with Jesus as the only difference.
- We affirm a “sanctity of life” ethic from conception to natural death.
- We affirm the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, the goodness of sex in marriage and the gift of children, lots of them.
- We affirm the complementary nature of male/female relationships rejoicing in the divine ordering of them for the home and the church; and the list could go on.

• Now, there are also some things we do not agree on doctrinally and theologically. For example:

- The exact nature of human depravity and transmission of the sin nature.
- The precise constitution of the human person.
- The issue of whether or not Christ could have sinned. (We all agree He didn’t!)
- The ordo salutis (”order of salvation”).
- The number of elders and the precise nature of congregational governance.
- The continuance of certain spiritual gifts and their nature.
- Does baptism require only right member (born again), right meaning (believer’s) and right mode (immersion) or does it also require the right administrator (ever how that is defined).
- The time of the rapture (pre, mid, post, partial rapture or pre-wrath rapture).
- The nature of the millennium (pre, amill or post)
- And, saving the best for last in our current context, we are not in full agreement about Calvinism and how many points one should affirm or redefine and affirm!

• Now, what are we to make of all this? Can we, and if so, how can we move ahead and work together?
• No one has been more helpful in helping us think rightly and wisely in this area than Dr. Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His paradigm of “theological triage” gets to the heart of how we can think well theologically. In A Theology for the Church (930-32), he addresses the subject, and here is how he puts it:

One essential task of the pastor is to feed the congregation and to assist Christians to think theologically in order to demonstrate discernment and authentic discipleship. The pastor’s concentration is a necessary theological discipline.  The pastor must develop the ability to isolate what is most important in terms of theological gravity from that which is less important.  I call this the process of theological triage. 

The pastor must learn to discern different levels of theological importance.  First-order doctrines are those that are fundamental and essential to the Christian faith.  The pastor’s theological instincts should seize upon any compromise on doctrines such as the full deity and humanity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of atonement, and essentials such as justification by faith alone.  Where such doctrines are compromised, the Christian faith falls.

Second-order doctrines are those that are essential to church life and necessary for the ordering of the local church but that, in themselves, do not define the gospel.  That is to say, one may detect an error in a doctrine at this level and still acknowledge that the person in error remains a believing Christian.  At the same time these differences can become so acute that it is difficult to function together in the local congregation over such an expansive theological difference.

Third-order doctrines are those that may be the ground for fruitful theological discussion and debate but that do not threaten the fellowship of the local congregation or the denomination.  Christians who agree on an entire range of theological issues and doctrines may disagree over matters related to the timing and sequence of events related to Christ’s return.  Yet such ecclesiastical debates, while understood to be deeply important because of their biblical nature and connection to the gospel, do not constitute a ground for separation among believing Christians. 

Without a proper sense of priority and discernment, the congregation [and denomination] is left to consider every theological issue to be a matter of potential conflict or, at the other extreme to see no doctrines as worth defending if conflict is in any way possible.

Brothers and sisters, some things are worth fighting over, and some things are not.  Some things are worth dividing over, and some things are not.  At the Building Bridges Conference I put it like this, and I have not changed my mind: “Our agreement on The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is an asset, not a weakness.  It is a plus and not a minus.  If I were to pen my own confession it would not look exactly like the BF&M 2000.  But then I do not want nor do I need people exactly like me in order to work together for the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the building of His church.  Our confession is a solid foundation for a sound theology that avoids the pitfalls and quicksand of a straightjacket theology.  Do we want or need a theology that rules out of bounds open theism, universalism and inclusivism, faulty perspectives on the atonement, gender-role confusion, works salvation, apostasy of true believers, infant baptism and non-congregational ecclesiology’s just to name a few?  Yes, we do.  These theological errors have never characterized who we are as Southern Baptists and they have no place in our denomination today.  Inerrancy is not up for debate.  The deity of Jesus and His sinless life are not up for debate.  The triune nature of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not up for debate.  The perfect atoning work of Christ as a penal substitute for sinners is not up for debate.  Salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is not up for debate.  A regenerate church is not up for debate.  Believers’ baptism by immersion is not up for debate.  The glorious historical and personal return of Jesus Christ is not up for debate.  The reality of an eternal heaven and an eternal hell is not up for debate.  There is nothing soft about this kind of theology, and we must avoid a soft theology at all cost.

Because of our passionate commitments to the glory of God, the Lordship of Christ, biblical authority, salvation by grace through faith, and the Great Commission, we should be able to work in wonderful harmony with each other.  We have a sound theology.”  The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is a solid confession for building theological consensus for Great Commission Cooperation.  The promise of the Conservative Resurgence was that eventually we would find common, biblical, theological ground that would be more than enough to get us focused on the Great Commission.  I think we have it, and I, for one, am ready to move ahead, and I believe the vast majority of Southern Baptists are as well!

VI. We must dedicate ourselves to a passionate pursuit of the Great Commission of the  Lord Jesus across our nation and to all nations answering the call to go, disciple,  baptize and teach all that the Lord commanded. (Matt 28:16-20; Acts 1:8; Rom. 1:5;  15:20)

• Southern Baptists were born, in part, out of a racist context and have a racist heritage. That will forever be to our shame. By God’s grace and the Spirit’s conviction, we publically repented of this in 1995 on our 150^th anniversary, but there is still much work to be done. The Southern Baptist Convention remains a mostly middle-class, mostly white network of mostly declining churches. If you doubt what I am saying look around today, visit a State Convention, attend an annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting, or drop in on 99% of our churches on any given Sunday. We can integrate the military, athletics and the workplace, but we can’t integrate the body of Christ! Shame on us!
• Until we get right about race I am convinced God will not visit us with revival. The call for a Great Commission Resurgence will not move heaven, and it will be scoffed at by the world for the sham that it is! “We will love you and welcome you if you look like us and act like us!” What kind of gospel madness is this?
• Starting at home we must pursue a vision for our churches that looks like heaven. Yes, we must go around the world to reach Asians and Europeans, the Africans and the South Americans. But we must also go across the street, down the road, and into every corner of our local mission field where God in grace has brought the nations here.
• This will demand little boys sitting down and men of God standing up. Reaching, for example, Muslim men, will require Christian men! This will demand a radical reorienting of lifestyles, priorities, commitments, and perspectives. Business as usual as a denomination and as individuals will not be an option if a real Great Commission Resurgence is to take place.
• We must take seriously each essential component of the Great Commission. Go . . . Disciple . . . Baptize . . . and Teach them to obey all that Christ has commanded.
• This means planting authentically Bible/Baptist churches and filling them with authentic followers of Jesus, irrespective of nationality, race, economic or social status. Genuine discipleship is not negotiable. We must train them and equip them to reproduce and then move on to those fields yet to hear the name of Jesus, inviting them to join us in the glorious assignment our Lord has given to all of His disciples.

VII. We must covenant to build gospel saturated homes that see children as a gift from God and as our first and primary mission field. (Deut. 6:1-9; Psalm 127; 128; Eph. 6:4)

• Southern Baptists have been seduced by the sirens of modernity in a very important place. We have been seduced in how we do family and how many we should have in the home.
• We have been seduced with respect to the gift of children.

- Children are a burden not a blessing.
- Less is best or at least less is better.
- Result: have less children!

• We have been seduced with respect to the importance of motherhood.

- It is an inferior calling.
- It can be delegated, at least in part, to another.

• We have been seduced with respect to the role of dad.

- He is a bumbling idiot.
- He is not necessary, maybe not even needed.

• We have been seduced with respect to what a good home is and does. Let me clarify what a good home looks like:

- It loves Jesus.
- It honors God.
- It teaches the Bible.
- It casts a vision for spiritual greatness.
- It has fun!
- It let’s go so that our children may soar for the glory of God!

Will you pray for God to call your children and grandchildren into vocational ministry? To go to the nations far away and to the hard places as an international missionary?! Will you get a Godward perspective for life, for marriage, for family?

VIII. We must recognize the need to rethink our Convention structure and identity so that we maximize our energy and resources for the fulfilling of the Great Commission. (1 Cor. 10:31)

• Here we address what will probably be the most controversial and generate the most debate, discussion and even opposition. However, it is here that the most frustration is felt. Too much of the Southern Baptist Convention is aiming at a culture that went out of existence years ago. Using mid-20^th century methods and strategies, we cannot understand why they are not working in the 21^st century.
• In addition, we have become bloated and bureaucratic. It is easier to move some things thru the Federal government than the Southern Baptist Convention. Overlap and duplication in our associations, state and national conventions is strangling us! If folks in the pew knew how much of their giving stayed in there state they would revolt and call for a revolution! Praise God I/we live in a state where our Convention leaders are trying to do something about this. Their tribe must increase! We waste too much time and too many resources and many are fed up saying, “enough is enough!” The rally cry of the Conservative Resurgence was we will not give our monies to liberal institutions. Now the cry of the Great Commission Resurgence is we will not give our money to bloated bureaucracies.
• Thom Rainer has challenged us to do simple church. I want to challenge us to do simple Convention. Let’s streamline our structure, clarify our identity and maximize our resources. How? I put forth the following as food for thought in the days ahead. This list is by no means exhaustive. Ask:

1) Is there not a way to have annual meetings on the National and State levels that are attractive, inspiring and worth attending? I confess if I were not required to attend I am not sure I would go to our yearly meetings either! So much of what we do is unnecessary and will never allow us to build momentum for the Great Commission.
2) Is the name “Southern Baptist Convention” best for identifying who we are and want to be in the future?
3) Do we need all the boards and agencies we currently have or could there be some healthy and wise mergers?
4) Do we have a healthy structure and mechanism for planting churches that will thrive and survive past a few years?
5) Do we have a giving program that fairly and accurately reflects the gifts many Southern Baptist churches are making to the work of our denomination?
6) Are we distracted by doing many good things but not giving our full attention to the best things? Church planting in the United States, pioneer missions around the world and theological education that starts in the seminaries but finds its way to the local church is a 3-legged stool I believe most Southern Baptists would gladly occupy! Let others do what they can do. Let us focus on what only Christ has commissioned us to do. Prioritize and simplify.

Our mission will require aggressive and intentional cooperation in church planting.  The churches we plant must be sound in their doctrine, contextual in their forms, and aggressive in their evangelistic and mission orientation.  In order to make this work, we need renewed commitment from our churches, local associations, and state conventions.  For local associations, this is an opportunity to demonstrate that they are still needed and that their existence matters.  In days gone by, local associations provided local churches with mission resources and advice that are now being provided by other institutions, networks, and people.  For state conventions, this provides an opportunity to return to their roots and stem the tide of churches that are bypassing (and many more that will) state conventions because they refuse to give money to what they consider to be bloated and inefficient bureaucracies with red tape a mile long.

• We need to kill and bury all sacred cows; we need to start talking publicly about what so many are whispering privately. Nothing less than a new vision and a new paradigm for effective and efficient cooperation will inspire a new generation to get on board and stay on board.

IX. We must see the necessity for pastors to be faithful Bible preachers who teach us both the content of the Scriptures and the theology embedded in the Scriptures. (2 Tim. 4:1-5)

• Today I sense a real hunger in a younger generation for strong Bible teaching and Christian theology. That is a wonderfully positive sign. With the waning of a cultural Christianity that cannot survey the attacks of a sophisticated and growing secularism, only faithful teaching of the Bible will equip 21^st century believers to stand strong as defenders of the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).
• We need a new battalion of well trained expositors who preach the whole Bible book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, phrase by phrase and word by word.
• Those who expound the Bible faithfully, theologically and practically will work the hardest, sweat the most, and wrestle with God and His word with the greatest time investment and intensity.
• Walt Kaiser is exactly right when he says, “One of the most depressing spectacles in the church today is her lack of power…At the heart of this problem is an impotent pulpit.” I am absolutely convinced there is a genetic connection between an impotent pulpit and an indifference concerning the Great Commission. Too many of our people know neither the content of Scripture nor the doctrines of Scripture. Preaching the cross of Christ, His bloody atonement, and the lostness of humanity is often absent. Some pulpiteers simply want to be cute or edgy. If the Bible is used at all, it is usually as a proof-text out of context with no real connection to what the biblical author is saying. Such men are guilty of ministerial malpractice on their congregation. Some topical preaching, narrative preaching, emerging preaching, and yes, even some types of doctrinal preaching, fundamentally suggest by their method and practice that the Holy Spirit should have packaged the Bible differently. This is spiritually ignorant at best and arrogant at worst. What our churches need is “expository preaching that is text driven and honors the truth of Scripture as it was given by the Holy Spirit.”
• Mark Dever well says, “The first mark of a healthy church is expository preaching. It is not only the first mark; it is far and away the most important of them all, because if you get this one right, all of the others should follow” (Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, p. 39). Mark is absolutely right in my judgment.
• The faithful expositor will be humbled, even haunted, by the realization that when he stands to preach he stands to preach what has been given by the Holy Spirit of God. The Westminster Directory (A.D. 1645) captures well what we are after, “. . . the true idea of preaching is that the preacher should become a mouthpiece for his text, opening it up and applying it as a word from God to his hearers, . . . in order that the text may speak…and be heard, making each point from his text in such a manner that [his audience] may discern [the voice of God].”
• A faithful minister of the Word will bombard every text with questions that many preachers of the Holy Scripture never ask, questions that will inspire and equip a congregation to become competent systematic theologians.

1) What does this text say about the Bible (and the doctrine of Revelation)?
2) What does this text say about God (also Creation, angelology)?
3) What does this text say about humanity (and sin, our falleness)?
4) What does this text say about Jesus Christ (His person and work)?
5) What does this text say about the Holy Spirit?
6) What does this text say about Salvation?
7) What does this text say about the Church?
What does this text say about Last Things?

• In particular, he will take note of what Jesus said in John 15:26, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father-the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father-He will testify about me,” and again John 16:14, where Jesus adds, “He [the Holy Spirit] will glorify Me.” Call it what you will, preaching that does not exalt, magnify and glorify the Lord Jesus is not Christian Preaching. Preaching that does not present the gospel and call men and women to repent of sin and place their faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not gospel preaching. We are not Jewish rabbis or scribes. Good and faithful exposition will be Christological in focus. It will carefully interpret each text in the greater context of the grand redemptive storyline of Scripture showing Jesus as the hero of the Bible.
• Brothers, we are not journey guides, self-help gurus, positive thinkers, entertainers, comedians, or liberal or conservative commentators, parroting the wisdom of the world. We are gospel preachers, Jesus-intoxicated heralds!
• Any theology that does not compel you to plead with men to be reconciled with God is a theology not worth having. Any preaching that does expect the living and powerful Word of God to produce results and usher in conversions is preaching that should be retired to the graveyard where it rightfully belongs.
• Bad preaching will sap the life of a church. It will kill its spirit, dry up its fruit, and eventually empty it. It is preaching that will torpedo a Great Commission Resurgence.

X. We must encourage pastors to see themselves as the head of a gospel missions agency who will lead the way in calling out the called for international assignments but also equip and train all their people to see themselves as missionaries for Jesus regardless of where they live. (Eph. 4:11-16)

• Missions is not a ministry of the church, it is at the heart of the church’s identity and essence.
• The strategic and biblical importance of the local church in this regard must be recaptured. Our churches do not exist to serve the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention at all levels exists to serve the churches, end of discussion!
• The local church is to be ground zero for the missio dei. Here is the “spiritual outpost” for the invasion of enemy territory as we reclaim lost ground for its rightful owner King Jesus. A new vision that I pray will grip the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention is, “every church a church planting church!”
• Pastors must be seized by a vision for the strategic importance of their calling as the head of a gospel mission agency called the local church. This will involve:
• 1) Being used by God to call out the called who have an overseas assignment given by our commander-in-chief, the Lord Jesus.
• 2) Partnering in strategic and vibrant church planting that assaults the major population centers of North America following closely the pattern of the apostle Paul. This alone will inspire and energize a younger generation because of the excitement entailed in a new work. Furthermore, and we must never forget, urban centers such as New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Los Angeles, and Seattle are 1) powerfully influential in national and international affairs and 2) almost completely bereft of evangelical influence.
• 3) Working to help revitalize existing local congregations so that we do not lose a meaningful past and squander massive assets built by our parents and grandparents.
• 4) Training all of our people to see themselves as a God-called missionary no matter what their vocation or location happens to be. God has gifted them and we must equip them for their service of ministry and missionary service in their community, school, workplace and places of recreation. Religious practices and traditions are not the same as missionary and gospel living. We must help our people recognize the difference. No one has addressed this better than Tim Keller, who in “The Missional Church,” [and if you don't like the word "missional" then think "missionary"] writes,

The missional church avoids ‘tribal’ language, stylized prayer language, unnecessary evangelical pious ‘jargon’, and archaic language that seeks to set a ’spiritual tone.’  The missional church avoids ‘we-them’ language, disdainful jokes that mock people of different politics and beliefs, and dismissive, disrespectful comments about those who differ with us.  The missional church avoids sentimental, pompous, ‘inspirational’ talk.  Instead, we engage the culture with the gentle, self-deprecating, but joyful irony the gospel creates.  Humility + joy = gospel irony and realism.  The missional church avoids ever talking as if non-believing people are not present.  If you speak and discourse as if your whole neighborhood is present (not just scattered Christians), eventually more and more of your neighborhood will find their way in or be invited.  Unless all of the above is the outflow of a truly humble-bold gospel-changed heart, it is all just ‘marketing’ and ’spin.’ http://www.redeemer2.com/resources/papers/missional.pdf

XI. We must pledge ourselves to a renewed cooperation that is gospel centered and built around a biblical and theological core and not methodological consensus or agreement. (Phil. 2:1-5; 4:2-9)

• There are essential and non-negotiable components of biblical worship and work. There is no specific biblical style or method ordained by our God. Look all you like. It is not there!
• What will unite Southern Baptist in the future will not be style, methodology and preference. Any past hegemony of methods and programs is gone, and it is not coming back. How we do things will be expansive and diverse. The key will be that what we do is filtered through the purifying waters of Scripture so that we honor Jesus and glorify the Father in all that we do.
• Different contexts will demand different strategies and methods. Cultivating the mind of a missionary we will ask, “What is the best way to reach with the gospel the people I live amongst?” Waycross, Georgia will look different than Las Vegas, Nevada. Montgomery, Alabama will look different than Portland, Oregon. Boston will be different than Dallas. Memphis will have a different strategy than Miami. Various ethnic believers and social/cultural tribes will worship the same God, adore the same Jesus, believe the same Bible, and preach the same gospel. However, they may meet in different kinds of structure, wear different kinds of clothes, sing different kinds of songs, and engage in different kinds of ministries. The point is simply this: we must treat the United States missiologically and do so with the same seriousness that our international missionaries treat their people groups missiologically. As long as it is done for the glory of God, has biblical warrant, and theological integrity, I say, Praise the Lord! So, let’s stop griping about organs, choirs and choir robes, guitars, drums, coats and ties, and get on with the real issue of the Great Commission!
• If we seek to build a consensus around style or methods we will continue to balkanize, fracture and lose important ground. If we will build a consensus around Jesus and the gospel, we can, we will, cooperate for the advancement of God’s Kingdom and He will bless us.
• Theology should drive our cooperation not tradition. The message of the gospel will unite us not methods!

XII. We must accept our constant need to humble ourselves and repent of pride, arrogance, jealousy, hatred, contentions, lying, selfish ambitions, laziness, complacency, idolatries and other sins of the flesh; pleading with our Lord to do what only He can do in us and through us and all for His glory. (Gal. 5:22-26; James 4:1-10)

• Pride – 1) “I don’t need the insights of godly, seasoned ministers.” 2) “Look at what the Southern Baptist convention is and has done!” God does not need the Southern Baptist Convention! We think more of ourselves than we ought.
• Arrogance – 1) “We know what is best because we have been there and done that. Younger brothers and sisters need to sit back and be quiet. When we need them we will let them know.”
• Jealousy – “I don’t want God to bless others and leave me/us out.”
• Hatred – Loathing others you should love.
• Contentions – Fighting over things that are not essential and acting as unchristian as the world.
• Lying – Purposefully misrepresenting others or not taking the time to accurately understand them.
• Selfish ambition – Wanting a place of leadership rather than earning a place of leadership. A love for running a church or denomination more than a love for serving it.
• Laziness – Not doing the hard work of ministry because it is costly.
• Complacency – Being satisfied with the status quo and being in denial that we are in a crisis moment that could be fatal.
• Idolatries – Putting anything or anyone in the place of Jesus and His agenda for His church.

Conclusion:

• I am convinced we can be better than this.  I also am convinced that we can do more together than we could ever do apart.  That is why I am in this to the end whenever or however it may come.
• However, we have to stop doing everything we do “for us!”  We have, in many ways, become a selfish people.  We must once more start doing what we do for others, beginning with Jesus. 
• God is going to turn this world upside down.  We can be a part of this if we are more passionate for His glory than our conveniences and comfort.  God is going to turn this world upside down, and we can be a part of it if we humble ourselves and focus on loving each other and working with each other to seek and save the lost.  Older believers need to acknowledge, “We need the energy and fresh ideas of a younger generation.”  Younger believers need to realize, “We need the wisdom and experience of our parents and grandparents.”  We really do need each other.
• Finally, we desperately need the heart of Jesus.  We need the eyes of Jesus.  If we can get to that, we will have what we need to move forward as a mighty Great Commission army going forth to do battle for the Captain of our Salvation and the Savior of Souls.  If not, we will find ourselves on the sidelines playing silly and meaningless games while God’s mighty army moves on without us.  Brothers and sisters, I have found the army I want to fight with. It’s called the church. I have found the Commander-in-Chief I want to serve.  His name is Jesus. I have found the enemy I want to destroy.  It is Satan, sin, death and hell.  Will you join me?  There is victory for the taking!