shawnethomas

(Preached at First Baptist, Pauls Valley OK, 10-12-14)

Many of us have looked on with shock and horror at the ISIS takeover of good portions of two countries in the Middle East, with the beheadings and other atrocities they have perpetrated. But millions of us have also been praying for God to work in that region of the world like never before. And there is evidence that He is! Just last Thursday, the Baptist Press reported that one of our missionaries ministering to the displaced peoples in the Middle East said that refugees have come to them by the thousands, and that our workers have had the opportunity to care for them, ministering with food and other help items some of us have donate towards, and as a result they are having unprecedented opportunities to share the gospel with them. In fact, the missionary said that the gospel is now moving forward among Iraqi and other previously unreached groups in ways they could only have imagined before!
We see in this report three keys to people coming to the Lord: first of all, prayer; secondly, a lifestyle and actions that prepare hearts for a witness; and third, a verbal sharing of the gospel that people might be saved.

As we continue our “Disciplines of Disciples” study, we remember that Jesus commanded those who would follow Him to deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Him. We have seen over the past weeks that part of “taking up the cross daily” means adopting some “vertical” daily disciplines that we exercise towards God, such as daily blocks of time in prayer, spontaneous praying, Bible study and memorization, and also some “horizontal” disciplines that we exercise towards other people, like the disciplines of fellowship and service in the church. Today we are going to look at a third “horizontal” discipline, “The Discipline of Evangelism”, from Colossians 4:2-6:

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