The Responsibility Of Evangelism

INTRO.- ILL.- A church member of John Henry Jowett’s church said that he heard Jowett preach every Sunday and a friend responded with: "WHAT A TERRIBLE RESPONSIBILITY!"

It is terrible to have to listen to some preachers and I may well be one of those! But we are supposed to be responsible when it comes to worship on the Lord’s Day and listening to His Word preached. AND I AM SUPPOSED TO BE RESPONSIBILE IN MY PREPARATION AND PREACHING OF GOD’S WORD! That makes us all responsible to the Lord! You’re responsible and I am too!

ILL.- CNN correspondent, Glenn Beck, wrote an interesting article about responsibility. LISTEN. What do these stories all have in common?

- A woman who says she lost more $1 million gambling in Atlantic City sues some casinos for $20 million, claiming they should’ve stopped her compulsive gambling.

- People who bought houses they couldn’t afford with loans they didn’t understand want their lenders to change the terms.

- Congress authorizes a war and then tries everything it can think of to get out of it.

- Our country gets addicted to oil and then blames OPEC when it doesn’t like the price.

These stories prove how personal responsibility has all but vanished in America, and our government is leading the way. Remember the kid from that 1980s commercial whose father caught him using drugs? The father asked, "Who taught you how to do this stuff?" and the kid responded, "You did, alright? I learned it by watching you." OUCH!

I’ve always heard it said that whatever we parents do our children may do in excess, be that drugs or whatever! If a parent smokes then chances are the child may smoke something stronger. If a parent drinks beer, a child may drink something else.

Beck goes on: Well, we are that kid and our government is that drug-using father who doesn’t think that anyone notices his bad habits.

Our government is leading us by example, and I don’t mean that in a good way. For years, it has spent us into oblivion, mortgaging our future for programs we can’t afford, and Americans have happily followed suit, running up credit card bills and home equity loans for things they never should’ve bought. Unfortunately, we’re also learning something else from our government: how to avoid taking responsibility for our actions.

From Eliot Spitzer’s alleged hooker craze to the revelation that Arnold Schwarzenegger commutes to work in a large private jet even as he preaches the dangers of carbon dioxide emissions, there’s never been a shortage of "do what I say, not what I do" hypocrites in politics. THANK YOU, GLENN BECK.

Don Henley, Singer/Songwriter, said: "In the old days, words like sin and Satan had a moral certainity. Today, they’re replaced with self-help jargon, words like dysfunction and antisocial behavior, discouraging any responsibility for one’s actions."

George Washington Carver said, "Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses."

Instead of making excuses when it comes to living for Christ, going to church, witnessing, etc. we must take our responsibility serious! If Easter and the resurrection is true, we must get responsible!

PROP.- In our text from Acts 18 I see the responsibility of witnessing for Christ.

1- We must preach Christ even though we are tentmakers

2- We must continue to preach until people stop listening

I. WE MUST PREACH CHRIST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE TENTMAKERS

1After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. 4Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. 5When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

ILL.- A guy came in late for work three days in a row. The boss said to him, "Don’t you know what time we start to work around here?" He said, "No, everybody is already at work when I get here."

Have you noticed that some people are always late for work? Why is that? It is because they really don’t want to work or are they too lazy to get up so they can be on time for work? Either way, it’s not good.

Paul was a tentmaker. Doesn’t sound like an inviting job to me, but in a sense, we’re all tentmakers. What am I talking about? We all have jobs. You have a chosen profession where you have to go to work every day and make a living. God understands this very well. He wants His people to work and realizes that not everyone can preach the gospel.