The Power & Necessity of Evangelism, Part 2 | Dr. Mike Woods, Sr. | 20 March 2025

Okay, I think I was muted. Glory to God, but I'm here. All right, so welcome to our 12 noon Bible study. This is Apostle Mike Woods, for those of you who are uninitiated. Listen, do me a kind favor, guys, and share. Good afternoon, Pastor Jasper, uh, so good to see you here, uh, today. Glory to God. And matter of fact, those of you that are joining, uh, do like Pastor Jasper, tag your family, tag your friends, uh, in the comments. Glory to the name of God. So that even if they don't join us now, uh, they'll get a notification that they can join us later. Uh, we're streaming currently over 4 different platforms, uh, via YouTube, uh, and Face— 3 Facebook pages, 1 YouTube channel. Um, however you're watching, glory to the name of God. Uh, we're grateful. Hey Bruce, good to see you, man. Um, We thank you for being here. Glory to the name of God and, uh, being a support to ministry. God bless you, sir. Uh, glory to God. We give God praise. God is so good. God is so good. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. God bless you, Stephanie. Good to see you. Glory to the name of God. Please share. Please share. Glory to God. We want people to get this. Amen. Sharing is caring. Matter of fact, sharing is godly. Glory to God. I'm gonna say that again: sharing is actually godly. So again, the question is proposed: have you shared this yet? Well, I'm not going to take a whole lot of time with preliminaries, but, uh, just know we love you guys, man. And again, it takes a lot to make the sacrifices to just decide, hey, I want to hear the word of God, I want to grow, I want to learn. Glory to the name of God. And specifically on subjects like this that actually challenge our nature, challenge our responsibility as, uh, children of God, it is so very important, people, that we understand that obedience is better than sacrifice. Okay, so Uh, today I want to— like I said, I want to kind of dive into this, um, with both feet. Yesterday we kind of gave an introduction to this. Uh, we talked about from Mark 16:15 point of view, or how we are all charged with the— oh my God— the duty and the strategy and the deliberate intent of evangelism, which is sharing the good news of Jesus Christ that transforms. And, and it's not just in word, but it's also in how we behave, how we become a light. So we talked a lot about that yesterday. Make sure you go and grab that. One of the main things I want to review from yesterday is, is the fact that when a king decrees a thing, it's law, it's a command. So Jesus said, go. He, he wasn't making a suggestion. Okay, he was actually giving a command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And every believer has a responsibility to follow that decree, to obey. Glory to the name. And I know, uh, everybody wants to do what they want to do, and I guess we'll play the grace card for that too. But the reality is, I'm telling you The Bible says in Ezekiel that the blood will be on your hand if, if you don't warn them for him. He— and God says it's like this in Ezekiel: if you did not warn them for me and share the truth with them, the blood would be required upon your hands. Hear me. So I, I did— I don't all the way accept the fact that I'm just going to get away with not sharing the gospel of Jesus with others, okay? And I'm assigned to certain people that need what's in my life. Are y'all here? So people need what's in your life, they need what's in my life. There are people you could reach I could never reach. But what I don't want you to do is, is live in this perpetual state of disobedience. Hear me, family, where you never witness you never share your faith, you never talk about Jesus. And I proposed a question yesterday: when was the last time you led someone to Christ, or you spoke to someone about the good news of Jesus Christ? Glory to the name of God. You, you ought to be able to readily answer that question yesterday, today. Glory to God, because that ought to be a part of your lifestyle, to share the good news, this awesome testimony this life-changing testimony that has occurred in your life. Watch this, because you are a servant— listen guys— of Jesus Christ. Glory to God. So let's pray. Praise God. And let's jump into this. It's always great to see my number one fan, my wife, here. God bless you, dear. Glory to the name of God. Please guys, go ahead and share. Um, we, we love you. We're gonna pray and we'll get in this. Father, we give you praise. And we thank you, dear God, for who you are. We thank you for your love and your compassion toward us. We thank you for the testimony. Glory to God. Thank you for 5 o'clock prayer this morning as we prayed for the lost. Glory to the name of God. Thank you for this fast, and we thank you in advance that the results of these fasts will be souls saved. Glory to God. We thank you that the results of us crucifying our flesh and turning our plate down. Glory to God. And, and praying and making a sacrifice to rise early will be so saved. And we thank you that even in this month, the month of March, we're going to see souls saved, healed, and delivered. Glory to the name of God at Rhoda Church. We thank you for it, God. We thank you that you're going to add to the church such as would be saved, God, and we give you praise for that now. Thank you for revival of souls, that, that literally people will come, not just a gathering of the saints being revived, but actual souls being saved and translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of your dear Son. And so, God, we love you and we thank you and we give you praise. Anoint this word with the intelligence of the Holy Spirit. And we praise you now in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Glory to God. All right, we're gonna jump in here, man. I believe God— glory to God— has something good in store for us today. Glory to God. Hallelujah. If you're ready to receive, glory to Jesus, why don't you type in the comments, I'm ready to receive. Glory to God. I'm ready to receive. Glory to God. All right, so let's get into this. So today, praise God, hallelujah, uh, we're gonna kind of look at the purpose of evangelism, okay? Um, I want to dive into this, and I'm gonna just kind of, uh, it's a lot of information that I could disseminate right here, but I don't have a lot of time, so I'm gonna kind of put in this particular teaching probably about 6 hours of teaching into this 30 minutes. So stay with me, glory to God, take good notes. Um, first thing I want to bring out with this, and we're going to look at some scriptures, so stay with me. Um, but when you see the mainstream culture that we live in deteriorating, hear me, I want you to take a really close look. I want you to zero in. Instead, again, I talked about this a little at 5 o'clock prayer instead of complaining about it and all the things we see going on around us, I want you to really take a very close look at culture and how it's deteriorating, right? And I want— if you look really deep inside of, of what you see and not just at the surface, I promise you, you're going to observe— hear me— that there is a massive amount, an astronomical amount of people of God, hear me, who have actually withdrawn themselves, oh my God, from the culture and turned it over, hear me, to unrighteous rule. See, it's easy to complain about what's going on. Hear me, hear me. When you're not engaged in the fight to make it better, so you just sit back and complain and hope it gets better. And most believers, this is what we do. We have good church, we bounce around the walls, we dance, we shout, we speak in tongues, we fall on the floor, but we really don't impact culture. And I want to tell you something, that, that's a problem. It just makes me itch. I start breaking out in hives and stuff when I think about— God have mercy— what's happening in the church and how dysfunctional the church really is. Because we think because we have good church, we really are doing something great. And the reality is we're not, because our job is to show up in the world. Our job is to show up for real and be present in culture so that we don't complain, but we change what— oh my God, oh my God— what, what infuriates us. We change what placates us. We change the things that stimulate us and that we want to see a difference in versus complaining about it. All right, so when you look at a divided culture, right, and you see where, uh, the church has withdrawn, and you see where, glory to God, there are no direct influence of the church in every space— watch this— that can only suggest one thing: a divided culture. Who? Because we're supposed to be the people who have dominion, right? Right. So a divided culture can only mean that there's a divided church. And when I say church, I'm not talking about one church, Water Church or First Baptist, or— no, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the ecclesia, the called-out ones, which is you and I individually. We are the church, but we're divided in principle because at the end of the day, our priorities have shifted to iconolistic worship, where we go to church because a certain person— oh, come on— is there, and we go to church because a certain man is there, or woman, and they're popular or whatever. Glory to God. And so the church has become iconolistic and divided from the plan. And instead of getting people to Jesus— oh my God— we're trying to get people to a man. When in reality, if you are popular, if you are influential, you should be using that influence to get people to God and not to yourself. You should only be a conduit where people go through you to him. And if people are not discovering him because of that, that's a problem. If at the end of the day all they're left with is you, trust me, they're left with a very flawed human existence. Because at the end of the day We're all human, we just have different vocations. So we're conduits to get people to God. Matter of fact, say that with me. Say, I'm a conduit, oh my God, to get people, oh Jesus, to God. Come on, say it. Say, I'm a conduit, oh, to get people to God. That's why your heart is beating. The very significance in your Your purpose is to align with his purpose. We do— we, we— a lot of teaching on purpose, a lot of teaching on destiny, a lot of teaching on kingdom. Well, the reason you have a kingdom purpose and destiny is so you can get people to the King, not to you. Not so people can see how well you do things, how well you articulate, how well you sing, how well you preach, how well you teach, how well you draw, how well you do whatever it is you do. It's not— listen, can I just say this? It's not about you. The very purpose is to get people to God. Listen, when I say divided, I'm not just talking about division along racial, cultural, and class lines neither, all right? When I say divided, I'm talking about a division that's really much larger than that, you know, because in this postmodern culture today. Hear me, family, we're often divided by doctrine, mission, vision— watch this— personal plans and agendas and outreach as well. I want you to consider something, and I want you to think, and that's what I want to do, uh, really with this message, because as we go into this over these next several days, we're going to understand really that the real necessity and power of what happens when we do share our faith for real. But consider these stats— shocking, man. So first, I want you to consider, over half of all Americans— watch this, this, this is divided, man— over half of all Americans believe Jesus sinned while on Earth. We can see how that could cause some division, right? But there are people who are in the church, believe 52% I'm— and these are real numbers, right? A poll from the Barna Group. Glory to the name of God. 52% believe that Jesus sinned while he was— say divided. Divided, man. And, and watch this, 52% believe that because Jesus sinned, it's okay for them to sin, uh, and not, and not work on their idiosyncratic ways. Secondly, watch this, nearly half, 47%, of Christian millennials agree— watch this— that it is wrong to share one's personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith. How confusing is that? So they— so you got 47% of millennials who believe it's wrong to share what you believe with someone that believes something else, because they have an innate hope that one day they'll also get to encounter that faith. Because they have a philosophy of monotheism that believes, glory to God, that all faiths lead to the same God. Well, if the integrity of Jesus's words stand true. Hear me, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man come to the Father except by me. So I cannot agree with the fact that every religion has a path to the same God. Listen, I have to believe what I've encountered, and what I've encountered is not some religious jargon, but it is a real personal encounter and relationship with God that makes me clear that what I stand in is true, that my conviction is true. So I can't buy into what these— what that's dividing. That's a lot of people. 47% of all the millennials, that's a lot of folk, man, believe that it ain't— it's more than one way to God. And they believe that it's wrong for me to impose my faith, what I believe, on someone that believes something else, because one day we may have to embrace what they believe. The devil is a liar. Divided— watch this— a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Okay, stay with me, stay with me, stay with me. 52%, watch this, of the Protestants in the United States. Now let me explain to you, for those who don't understand what it means to be Protestant, if you are born again Christian, you're considered in the class of a Protestant. Has nothing to do with your denomination or non-denomination. If you believe the King James Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you are a Protestant. The word Protestant comes from protest, which is when Martin Luther left the Catholic Church because Catholicism began to twist scripture to his own agenda. Martin Luther tacks a thesis on the door of the Roman Catholic Church declaring that he was protesting against the twists in scripture and introduced what we now know as King James Bible. Glory to God. And which is what we stand on. So 52% of U.S. Protestants believe that faith alone— watch this— is not enough for salvation, but rather ascribe to faith and good works as the way into heaven. And, and that's how some, some of you may stand in that 52%. Because I know at one point in my life I did. I, I believe that, you know, I had to work my way into heaven and not necessarily believe, uh, that the finished work of the cross was enough to get me there. Are y'all hearing this? That my belief in Jesus— that, watch this— is by faith according to the word of God that you are saved, not by works, lest any man should boast. The work of the cross, the efficacious, vicarious, redemptive, substitutionary work of Calvary. That's what makes me born again. Oh my God, that's what makes me— glory to the name of God— saved. That's my state in God. I'm saved. Now, as a response to that, holiness should be my portion. Watch this. Glory to the name of God. Because holiness without— no man can see God. So now, because he gave gave me holiness through his blood. My response to what he done, because I love him, should be a life of light. 52% believe though that, hey, faith alone ain't enough, you got to work your way to heaven. But we're saved by faith, people. Our holiness is a response to his work. The work is finished. Oh boy, I'm sorry, I know y'all don't want to hear that. The work is finished. But the reality, because we like to— because you got some people that they don't feel like they're saved unless you're telling them don't brush your teeth, don't take a bath, don't wear pants, don't— oh my God, don't wear pants, don't wear a dress, wear your dress down to your ankles, don't wear a tie, wear a bow tie. They need all of these rules to feel, oh, I'm saved because I'm doing this. No, you're saved because of what Jesus did, and you live a life that is non-legalistic. Free to serve him in the beauty of holiness. Are y'all hearing this? Because— and, and for— God forbid if you took those rules away from some people, they wouldn't know what to do because they have no faith. See, because their faith is in the rule, the legalistic charge, and not actually what Jesus already did through faith in his blood. Okay, so I can go on and on with these realities, man. But the fact is, I really think you get the picture here. But as a church, I want you to hear something. We have lost our way. God has called us as his people to be influential in society, to make a difference. So Jesus articulates his mission. Let's go to Mark again. Glory to God. 16:7. Hallelujah. And let's get into this, and I'm gonna be done. So something— because I, I don't want to lose you. Glory to God. Stay with me. Mark 16:7. I hope y'all getting something already out of this. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Mark 16:7. Okay, I don't know what happened. I think we had a bad glitch right there. Glory to God. Anyway, Mark 16:7. Y'all still with me? Praise God. The Bible says here, but go your way, tell his disciples and Peter he goeth before you into Galilee. There you shall see him as he said unto you. So here, family, God begins to share with his people after he's resurrected. He met with his followers and He says, now go your way, tell the disciples and Peter— Peter who had denied him. I want you to bring him back in. Glory to God. Because I know y'all done ostracized him. That's how we do, folk. Glory to God. He said, go your way, tell him. Watch this. So this— he, he, he got them together and he said, we're going to articulate this mission. Go to Matthew 28:16. Y'all know this one. Glory to God. Just another version of 16:15, but I want to read this one. Glory to God, because it's Matthew's articulation. Glory to God of this particular idea. Watch this. He says, then the 11 disciples went away, uh, 28:16, I'm sorry, into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus appointed them. So the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus designated. And this was— watch this— the only organized meeting that Jesus called after he got up from the grave. Watch this, okay? He was on earth for 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension. So he got up, and for 40 days he was in the earth. This is the only meeting he called, uh, that was organized, right? Hallelujah. And there was 11 apostles. Judas was dead. There was a second group, uh, that was called the more than 500 brethren. Matter of fact, let's read that, uh, 1 Corinthians 15:6, because it wasn't just the 11 here. So there was, uh, more than 500 brethren who saw the risen Christ at the time. Here it is. Glory to God. So this is an organized meeting. I want you to hear this. I'm going somewhere with this. 1 Corinthians 15. Glory to Jesus. And 6. Here's the Bible. The Bible says, after this he was seen of above 500 brethren at once. So this is at that same— this same meeting, of whom the greater part remain unto this presence, but some are fallen asleep. Glory to God. So I want you to understand something. There are a couple of things Jesus said at this meeting. Right? So if you read 28:19 and 20, let's go back to Matthew 28:19 and 20. We're going to see what he said at this meeting, why it was important for him to come back from the dead. Watch this. And make sure this command— whoo— was released. See, I'm telling the church don't want to hear this because the church doesn't want to do this. Right, so let's go to Matthew 19. I'm gonna read 19 to 20, and, and then I'm gonna give you some principle, and we're gonna get out of here. But before we read it, right, Matthew 19:20, before we read it, glory to God, before we read it, praise God, I want you to grab this. There are a couple enemies to evangelism. There are a couple of reasons why you don't share your faith. Right? There's a couple of reasons why you don't boldly declare the good news of the testimony of what God has done for you. The first one is very simple, and I want you to take this in love, right? The first one is you really don't know the— oh, the latitude the depth even of what God did for you. You really take that lightly because, watch this, if someone gave you a million dollars and you had opportunity to share that news with people at different moments, you're going to share it. Glory to God! Because you're excited about what happened to you. How that changed your life, right? If you had cancer and God healed your body, which I've seen him do— I've seen him heal that. I'm saying I can't even count the miracles I've seen. Glory to God. And I love talking about them because at the end of the day, he's that kind of God. But let me tell you, the greatest miracle that ever occurred in your life, the highest latitude and highest altitude of miraculous things that occurred was the fact that Jesus died for you and you received him. That's a miracle. That's a miracle that you're actually born again of spirit. Hallelujah! You're a new creature in Christ. What a miracle. And when you look at your life, you can honestly see that you are not the person you used to be. What a miracle! Glory to God! What a blessing! What a breakthrough! My God, today that you're saved. But you again, and I'm gonna propose it, I'm gonna propose a question again. You preachers, you believers, you so-called apostles, you so-called prophets, glory to the name of God, you so-called evangelists, and especially you people call yourself an evangelist and you ain't winning souls, you so-called pastors and teachers, and you so-called believer, when was the last time you shared this good news and led someone to Jesus Christ. Oba, sibuku langisa tabaya, we gabo tu rebesa, rebande. God, we bind up every spirit of disbelief in what you've done for us. There's great— oh my God, there's great significance and— oh my God, oh my God— importance and urgency to what God did for you and I. We must share it. People need to know it. Oh God, the more I think about it, I'd be dead sleeping in my grave. I'd probably be— if I wasn't dead and didn't get saved, I'd probably be locked up in someone's jail. Glory to the name of God. But thanks be to God, the blood he shed for me and changed my life. Ye le de de po ho si ka mande. I want your spirit to get stirred because what he's done for you is significant. And it's an enemy when you don't understand the altitude of it and the latitude of it and the depth of it. Glory to God. It's a problem. It's a problem that you're out here calling yourself a preacher, a minister, an apostle, a prophet, a pastor, an evangelist, a believer. And you ain't told nobody about Jesus, and nobody has gotten saved because your heart beats. That's a problem, people. And it, it violates and negates the very purpose of your salvation, which is to enter into the multiplicity of ministry. You may never enter into pulpit ministry. Because watch this, everybody want that. But I promise you, you got a ministry. There are some people who are assigned to your life, woo! And they need your testimony so they can come in. What you waiting on? God did something very, very real for you. Very, very strong for you. Very, very powerful for you. Omansi o shabaya, nete de bonci antataba. And you get impressed by all of this membership transfer. You're impressed by mega ministries. It's only grown through membership transfer. Oh my God, I got another statistic, I just didn't give it to you, but oh my God, oh my God, uh, the average church of 5,000 plus— do you unders— let me, let me help you understand something about this. The church growth is 92.1% membership transfer. So that means those churches that are in that realm are pretty much changing members in cities, and they're not really impacting the city. Oh, and let me, let me show you a backup number to prove that. A backup number to prove that is— let me just give you Atlanta. Atlanta is where I'm at. So 7.1 million people now in the Metroplex, right? Only 7.9% of those people are born again and Spirit-filled. What, what, what, what are we doing? I mean, you got— that's a— oh my God, 7.9%. Let's just— let's round it up to 10%. So that's 720,000 people roughly, hear me, out of 7.1 million that's born again, Spirit- Field, we got a problem. We got a real issue with membership transfer and people call, oh, we're in revival. No, you just got a bunch of folk from everywhere else coming to your church. Well, last time somebody got saved, somebody got changed, somebody got delivered, last time you cast out a demon— and I'm not talking about in your church, in Kroger, at a Hawks game, on the airplane. Come on. Oh boy. Oh, oh, sha, sha bondiko, sha. Oh God, we love you, we give you glory. I'm gonna move, I'm gonna move. Okay, so that's, that's, that's one reason you don't evangelize. Here's another reason, is fear. A lot of people do, they really want to, but they're afraid. They really want to pray for people in public. They really want to use their gifts to people they don't know. But can I tell you something? And, and the Apostle Paul said it so clearly. He, in 1st— oh my God, 2 Timothy 1:7— he said, for God has not given you the spirit of fear. Hear me, family. But he gave you power. Oh my God. He gave you love and he gave you a sound mind. So the moment you get fearful which is a cowardice from fright. You get frightened, you become cowardice, and you don't share. And guess who suffers? You know you need to share, but the person that suffers is the person you don't share with. So you cannot allow that fear to consume you so you don't share. Hear me, family, you got to decide that you're going to overcome that. How do you do it? You got to receive what God gave you. God said he didn't give you fear. Now, he didn't say you didn't have it. He said he didn't give it to you, which means it comes from the enemy. And the enemy uses it mainly to keep your testimony on mute. The devil wants your testimony on mute, people. He wants it on mute. He wants you silent about what God has done for you and what God is doing in your life and what God can do in the life of someone else. He wants you quiet. But you got to flip the script, right? You got to receive what he did give you. Stop accepting fear. You've been— you're accepting it and you don't witness. So you got to accept power, which is dunamis in Greek, which is an inherent ability. You gotta accept the ability of God. Hallelujah. And understand that when you go to witness and you go to minister, you're not doing it in your own ability, your own authority, that God has given you dynamo, dunamis power. Glory to God. And you're working in alignment and cooperation with him. So, oh my God, to bring people to him, and you become like a whirlwind. That— see, a dynamo is a tornado. Glory to God. And it gets stronger as it picks up debris. And as you're spinning, glory to God, into the world and getting people to hear the gospel and to hear your testimony about your encounter with Jesus. You get stronger, you get more bolder, you, you start walking, my God, with more authority. Oh God, oh, the world needs you. Somebody needs you. Gloria Mansi, Levantushia. Stop walking if you got to flip the script. So you can't— you got to accept power, you gotta accept love. Agape. He loves you unconditionally, and he becomes the person or the people you need to speak to about him unconditionally. Receive that and give it away. You realize the gift of agape, the gift of love from God— hallelujah— it is just that, a gift. It is a blessing from heaven, and it really cannot be solidified as a blessing until you give it away to somebody else. So instead of receiving fear Start looking at your evangelistic efforts as showing love. Hear me, family, hear me. When you— every time you speak the truth of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ to someone that needs to be born again, or you pray for a sinner and they get healed, you prophesy to a sinner and it blows their mind because how can you know their business? You are expressing the love of God. So don't be fearful. Operate in love. And then watch this, he said, I didn't give you fear. So while you may be second-guessing your ability or your soundness or your intellect to do it, he said, I gave you power, I gave you love, and I gave you a sound mind. Oh, sophronismos in Greek, which literally means a well-balanced, intelligent mind. He said, I gave you a well-balanced, intelligent mind. Oh glory! So, so you're not dumb, you're not stupid. Stop saying that of yourself. When you came into God, he imputed supernatural intelligence in your life. Glory to God. And listen, as smart as people believe I am, I'm only as smart as the intelligence God has given me. Glory to God. I could take no credit, glory, because whether you believe it or not, there was at one and one grade in my life, I totally was an F student. Glory to God. Hallelujah. And, and I, I moved from that, glory to God, to achieving at high levels academically. Because guess what I did? I received the intelligence that at a young age that God had put in my life. I realized I was just as good as everybody else in books. Glory to God. You, you got to understand that you have an edge with God. He's given you a well-balanced, intelligent mind. That's Sophronis Moss. So you have the ability, and you know what I know about God, you start talking for him, that Holy Spirit, glory to God, that God that's in you will begin to speak through you. Glory to God, he'll begin to speak out of you, and he'll take over the conversation and give you things to say in that very moment. Oh my God, today we love you, Jesus. We love you. We love you. So don't— that's— so fear stops you from witnessing. Limited belief in the— oh my God— and perception of the depth, the latitude and altitude of what has been done for you stops you. And finally, here we go, slothfulness. The spirit of slothfulness is dangerous to your witness. Some people, again, they ain't afraid. They believe Jesus saved them. They, they know the depth of it. They're just lazy. They just want to go to Kroger, get what they gonna get, and get out. So they lazy when it comes to actually being a light. Oh boy, they just won't go to work. See, I think it's a problem if you work at a job and the people at the job don't even know you saved. Listen, the devil's at work talking about everything they doing. They talking about partying, they talking about drinking, they talking about happy hour, they talking about fornicating, they talking about everything they're doing. Why is it that nobody know you saved? Yeah, I'll wait on that answer too. Listen, people be coming, coming and say, Apostle, oh my God, them folks on that job get on my nerve, I got a headache, they make it— well, why? You the one with the power. Come on, it ought to be some devils stopping by the church and, man, them church folk getting on my nerve. What y'all doing over here? So I can— so I can— so I can get on the devil nerve. Glory to God. But we're too silent, we're too reserved because we're slothful and lazy. And God says that's a problem. Uh, that's a whole nother message for another day. Slothfulness, I can teach that all day long, every day. But here's what I want you to know. When you're lazy, you deny yourself of fruit. And when it comes to witnessing, you're denying the kingdom of the fruit it could have. Now you can see why not witnessing is hermesia, because you're denying people of what they need, and it's got to come through you. It's sin, all right? So you got to correct that and repent. So let's, let's get into this. Matthew 28:19, and I'm, I'm done. My time about gone. I'm almost out of here. Matthew 28:19. Watch this. The Bible says, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Oh boy. Uh, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Now watch this. He's— Jesus began this proclamation to us with these words: go and make disciples of all nations. Now, as I said yesterday, some people have took this because they don't study the Bible— glory to God— for meaning. Because we, again, we read Matthew 6:16-15, which tells us to preach the gospel to every creature. So the prerequisite to making disciples has to be preaching because discipleship comes through teaching. Doctrine and balance in kingdom is taught. Hallelujah! The gospel is preached or testified or, or herald with excitement. Glory to the name of God! Because guess what? Nobody's going to listen to you if you're not excited about what happened with you. You need to have some joy behind it. So the reality is you can't take this to mean that you skip the step of actually Witnessing to people. Yes, we understand we need to disciple people. We get that. You cannot disciple— oh boy— anyone if they hadn't— what are you, what are you discipling them into if they haven't received it through faith? They got to receive Jesus first. Let's get that step out of the way, and then yes, let's disciple them. Glory to God. Let's teach them to observe all things. So The first thing here is we must go. This is the first principle. Touch yourself, say, I must go. It's the first of these things we need to do to be evangelistic. Glory to God. And to be evangelistic simply means that we are participating in the work of evangelism. Glory to God. So here, this is the first of the three things I'm about to give you. We must go. They're in the text. Can I submit to you, it's time to put the go back in gospel. Glory to God. Uh, you spell G-O-S-P-L. It's time to put the go back in gospel because all we're doing is the last part of that spells. We're casting spells, getting people mesmerized by worship experiences. Oh my God. And gathering and assembling bunches of church folk. Hear me. Oh, but I know we don't like this. I know we don't like— because it ain't popular, man. That's why you don't hear it on the blog. It ain't talk— they don't talk about this on the blog. They ain't just— they're not talking about this. Ain't no mega preachers really preaching this because it ain't good for business, right? Glory to God. This ain't entertaining, so they ain't preaching this. They're not preaching this. They're afraid to preach it. Are y'all hearing me? We give you praise. Ah, Shabbat. We must say, say, I must go. Listen, so the commission blends evangelism, getting people saved, and discipleship, because discipleship and evangelism are different. So I just want to say this for other people to say, because I was talking to one apostle one time, said, look, You got to get engaged in winning the loss. Well, yeah, I understand, but you know, we really just need to be more concentrated on discipling people. No, dummy. Okay, I said this to them then, and I— listen, okay, I know, I'm sorry. Listen, I don't know how to do nothing but be me. That's dumb, right? Because at the end of the day, what are you discipling? If I catch a fish Glory to God, I can clean it, I can skin it, I can fry it, I can eat it. Glory to God. But if he's swimming around in that ocean, ain't nothing I can do with it. But I got to get him on the hook so I can— oh, shi mande, lo boku te aya. Matter of fact, quick question: when was the last time you went fishing? Because guess what Jesus said? He said, I have made you fishers of men. He told the disciples, follow me, I'm making you— in Luke chapter 5, I'm making you fishers of men. When last time you went fishing? Yeah, matter of fact, I think I may teach that Sunday. Glory to God, as a part of this. When last time you went fishing? Oh, Shabbat! Oh mondia! Yeah, when last time you did that for men? Glory to God. Yeah. All right, so we must go. Say, we must go. We must go. We must go. We cannot be this immobilized this immobilized ecclesia that doesn't show up in the world. You must show up with the light of the glorious gospel and the love of God gleaming from your existence so that people will know who he is. Glory to God. Secondly, he says in the text, he said, go, and then he says, teach all nations, which is the disciples. He said, now baptize them. Here we go. That Jesus— this is another part of his charge. So we must go— watch this— now say this, say, we must baptize. So after we go, we bring them in, hallelujah, we get them saved, we get them saved, we bring them in, we teach them to observe all things, right? We disciple them, and now we must baptize. Baptism here is not just, okay, uh, getting wet with water, right? Because we need that part too. For those of you that have eliminated baptism from the church, okay, you— we need to keep baptizing folk. It's a part of the salvation process, okay? The Bible says here that it's identity outwardly and inwardly connected to baptism. So many times we, we go down, as old mother in the church used to say, a dry devil come up a wet devil, and never get transformed. The reality is how we keep that from happening, we have to baptize people into the identity of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Watch this, the word baptism is baptizo in Greek, And baptizo means to submerge until the result is achieved. Let me give you an example when it comes down to baptizo. If, if I had some white wool and I wanted to make a red garment, right? And so, because baptizo is a commercial word, so the sheep shearer would shear that wool from the sheep, take it to the dye pit, and begin to dunk the wool Michael baptized, baptizo, the wool, white wool into the red dye until it was totally red. So identity is a continual process. So once I get people in, I, and after I show up in the world, I can now continue to baptize them in the, not the preacher, but baptize them in the identity of Jesus. Until all 9 fruit of the Spirit are manifest in their life, until the gifts of the Spirit are manifest, until their purpose and calling becomes clear. We keep dunking until we see manifestation of transformation. So we must baptize. Oh my God, go to Romans 6:3 and 4. I'm getting out of here. He says, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Jesus Christ have been baptized into his death. Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk— hear me, I got to get out of here, man— in the newness of life. I got 6 minutes, I'm about to go. We got to put our trust in Christ completely. So that that old man is destroyed through baptizo, not just in the water. We gonna get to the water, we gonna go through, we gonna get baptized, glory to God, in water, right? But then after that, we're going to start being baptized in identity, because as we are in the death through baptism, we also experience a resurrection through baptism. So I should be experiencing a resurrected life through baptism. Are y'all here? Glory to God, I'm teaching real good today. I'm doing my good teaching today. Praise God. Hallelujah. I pray y'all getting this. Good God from Zion. So say we must go, Matthew 28:19-20. Say we must baptize, and finally, here we go, we must teach. So in verse 20, he said, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command So once people have believed the gospel and have been identified with Christ through baptism— hear me— we must teach them to observe all things that we've learned. So wait a minute, that says a couple of things. It says, one, I must as a believer take— continue to take the position of a learner so that I can take my learning and teach others. Wow. So that, that's not solely the responsibility of the leader. It's the responsibility of new disciples, those who are following God. For— oh my God. So that's why you ought to take pleasure in leading a small group. You ought to take pleasure in conducting Bible studies. You ought to take pleasure, glory to God, in having Zoom meetings with your community. Glory to the name of God. Where you're constantly teaching them after you have— oh my God— seen them discipled, seen them saved, to observe what you know, right? We shouldn't wait— have to wait for the preacher on Sunday morning to disseminate that message. We literally could change social norms and systems and close the divide when every believer takes his place as a believer, or whether you're a leader today. I'm almost done, hear me. Yeah, yeah, I know people, they're gonna bounce in and out. It's okay. Yeah, it's okay because this is not popular, man. It's just not. Again, we're over 3 different— 4 different platforms right now, 3 Facebook pages, Instagram, and the numbers do this, and it's okay. Because this ain't popular, man. You, you got to be mature. You, you got to want to take this responsibility and get out of this, you know, place of complacency and slothfulness and actually begin to operate in it. All right, so, so teaching the nations— let's, let's deal with that real quick and I'm gonna get out of here. Uh, it involves more than teaching them, uh, theology. Which is the study of God, or Christiology, which is the study of Christ, or, uh, Soteriology, which is the study of salvation. It actually has nothing to do with any of the ologies of the faith only. This deals with people being able to observe and be obedient to the things Jesus say, that people will embrace the truth of the book. Book and actually live it. To observe means to obey. Here in the text, observe all things, that's what he said, which is terio in Greek, which means obedience. To, to, to carefully obey through watching and knowledge. So when I learn right, I do right, right? So again, I get saved by grace, but when I learn what's right, I do what's right. So I, I observe all things, uh, We have to obey what's contained in the word, right? So we got to teach others, and we— in order to— the best example of that is you living it yourself, right? It's hard to tell somebody else what to live and do if you're not doing it. Well, I guess people do it all the time, it really ain't that hard, but it's hard to be a be effective when it's clear you're not really living what you're talking about. Oh, okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go. Somebody said it's too much, I need to scroll, Apostle. Yeah, I know, go right ahead, it's okay. Glory to God. Because people's attention span is really short. But I need you to understand, you have a responsibility on your shoulder to be an epistle according to the Apostle Paul that is written and read of men. Your best testimony is the life you live before people, and not just talking the gospel but carrying it out in your day-to-day life. I get to go— I got, I got to get out of here, man. Listen, Christ is with us always. He never leaves us nor forsakes us. He wants there to be a visual demonstration of who he is in our life. The best teaching you will do is not holding a Bible in your hand or with a microphone. It's how you live. And you can live in a way that you're light. You know, I'm around people all the time that cuss. I mean, whether I'm on the set filming something, I'm around people who are just living in sin, that they're doing what sinners do. Or I'm on a golf course, people cussing, people doing that thing. But if I'm different, it stands out because I'm not cussing, I'm not smoking, I'm not doing the stuff they're doing, I'm not chasing somebody else's woman, none of that. The reality is there's a light because I'm displaying behavior, not legalistically, but because I love God and because I understand my lifestyle is a part of my witness that Jesus can transform, that he can make you a new creation. Glory to God. The Bible says, come out from among them, except be ye separate, said the Lord. So you got to separate yourself from unrighteous living. So that God can get the glory out of your life. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this word. I pray that it helped someone today. I thank you for this fast. Again, Father, I pray that we won't just be going hungry, but God, we will have breakthrough during this fast and that your glory will be revealed in every way. I thank you for the harvest of souls. In the mighty name of Jesus, we give you praise, we give you glory, we give you honor. We bless you in Jesus' name. Lord, we thank you. We will go, we will baptize, we will teach. And Father, let our lives be a light that others may find you. In Jesus' name, amen. And thanks be to God. Listen, I love you guys, man. Thank you for those of you that endured. My God, we're done today. Listen, want to encourage you, hallelujah, to join us. My God, to join us. Hala mandia. Yes, Bruce, I'm so glad the internet did what it needed to do. Glory to God. Hallelujah. So this word could get out for this fast. It's not too late, ladies and gentlemen. I'll say again, it's not too late to get on board and fast with us. We are in the midst of a 12-day fast. Glory to God. You still can jump on board. You could do so, glory to the name of God, by downloading our fast guide. Glory to the name of God. You could find the fast guide at rawchurch.com/fast25. If you have not done that, please download it. And I need you to really follow the instructions, okay? Meditate on the scriptures that are there. They're gonna stir something in you. Uh, glory to the name of God, and help ignite this fire even as we're teaching about evangelism. Glory to the name of God. That particular guide is going to help you, uh, it's going to give you the instructions about 5 o'clock prayer, about these 12 noon teachings, uh, just in general. It's a great guide to help you along the fast— the foods to eat, the foods not to eat. Amen. When we're eating, where we're not eating, it's all in the guide. So make sure you go and download the guide at rhodochurch.com fast25, uh, so that you can fast with us. Listen, if you're still here, just do me a favor. I want to see— just throw some thumbs up in the comments. Glory to the name of God in the comments here on YouTube, wherever you are. Just throw a thumbs up if you are actually fasting with us. If you're fasting with us, throw a thumbs up for me now. Please just do that, throw a thumbs up. Praise God if you're fasting, if you're fasting with us. We give God praise. Hallelujah. And remember, we're praying every morning at 5. 5 o'clock prayer was great this morning. Glory to the name of God. Join us every morning at 5. I'll see you tomorrow morning at 5. We had a great, uh, time of prayer. God met us. Glory to God in prayer this morning. At 5 AM. But if you are indeed fasting with us, throw a thumbs up in the, uh, comments. Glory to the name of God! And just let us know you're fasting. Praise God! We love God. He's good, he's wonderful, he is great. Praise God! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! He is good. Hallelujah! Just again, just throw a thumbs up if you are indeed, uh, fasting with Thank you, Lord. We're going— listen, I want to challenge your hearts to give today. At the end of the day, I, I said it yesterday, and I want you to really be obedient. Glory to God. To, uh, trust God in your giving as we go through this fast. I, I share this with you a lot, uh, but it's— your giving keeps you in the circle of supernatural provision. You know, I know somebody said, well, I gave at the office, I've already given this, I've already given that, you know, every time you hear the word, you should give something. The Bible says, if I communicate to you spiritual things, you should communicate your natural things. And whatever that is, I mean, if, if your best gift is $5, get something in the ground, because you cannot lose giving to God, for real. So I'm going to throw the ways to give up on the screen really fast. Because I want you to participate in giving today. Amen. I want you to trust God, uh, in your giving, because I believe when you do that, uh, you can— you have a right, man, to actually expect a return. Glory to the name of God. Anybody trusting God for finances and breakthrough, listen, the best way to get to it, glory to God, is to be a giver. Praise God. So get your seed in the ground. Matter of fact, I'm gonna do one better and I'm just gonna scroll it at the bottom of the screen. So the ways to give are now scrolling at the bottom of the screen, but get your seed in the ground, family. Glory to God. Father, bless every gift, every giver. Give it back to them a thousand times more as they move in obedience to your word. As they have received spiritual things, they communicate natural things. You know, so many times we haphazardly will spend $20, $25, $30 here and $30 there. And at the end of the day, we've done that on something that really has no ROI, no return on investment. But just think if you could deliberately on a day-to-day basis just get seed in the ground, what that would look like for your harvest. Because you're, you're not waiting to a certain time religiously, but you're moving according to scripture and the momentum of the spirit. And you're flowing and you're flowing because watch this. Money is not currency. Hallelujah. Your mind is. And your mind is, is influenced by what's in your spirit. So the more your spirit influences your mind toward releasing resources in your life, the better you will become at giving. So listen, I don't like talking about this for real. Y'all probably think I do, but I don't. But my concern is always trying to get money to you. Because I'm always giving and I know it works for me. Glory to God. Somebody told me they want to know the secret of how, you know, I process things and how money comes into my life. I'm a giver, man. I, I'm the biggest giver in my church. I'm the biggest giver in my organization. I'm the biggest giver to my businesses. And I reap harvest because I give. I need you to do the same thing. And whenever you're relaxed in your giving you know, we talked about aggressive faith all month, you're never going to really see what you desire to see. So get your seeds in the ground, family. I love y'all so much. Glory to God. Uh, God is such a great and mighty God. Uh, beside him there is no other. Glory to God. We thank you for multiplied harvest. We thank you that as your people are supporting ministry today, that whatever they're sowing is going back to them a thousand times more. More in Jesus' name. Y'all be blessed, man. I'll, you know, I know you, some of y'all be tempted to eat before 5, but stick it out, man. The blessing is worth it. Drink your water, you know, stand through. Glory to God. And, and watch God, uh, just really bless you for the sacrifice. Y'all be blessed, man. Y'all have a great day. I'll see you tomorrow morning at 5. Listen, Rada Nation, no Bible study tonight. Uh, this teaching today is in lieu of Bible study. Glory to God. Take some time this evening if you need to go back and watch messages you have not heard. Listen, I'm going to try and get posted today that amazing word from God that Pastor Jeffrey preached at the church on Sunday. I, I was out of town. Pastor Jeffrey stood and preached flat-footed and preached a solid word from God, man. And, uh, I think the world needs to hear, uh, what he shared and disseminated. So we're going to make sure we get that out as soon as possible. The reality is, take time to get word in you. It's important, man. You realize the time you spend scrolling, you can actually stop and watch one message. Yeah, and be blessed, man. Y'all be blessed. Y'all have a great day. I love y'all. Peace.