World Evangelism Podcast

Understanding Your Mission in Global Evangelism

• W. Austin Gardner • Season 1 • Episode 35

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What if you could play a pivotal role in changing the world through the simple act of sharing a message? On this episode of the World Evangelism Podcast, we promise to unfold the profound responsibility and privilege of being ambassadors for Christ in the arena of global evangelism. Inspired by 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, we dive deep into God's grand plan of reconciliation through Jesus Christ, and how we, as His representatives, are tasked with the sacred mission of spreading His message of love and salvation. Join us as we explore the significance of intimately knowing God to effectively communicate His boundless grace and good intentions towards humanity.

Feel the urgency of world evangelism as we reflect on the compelling message of salvation articulated in Isaiah 53 and Romans 10. By understanding that salvation is a gift of grace, not earned through works, we are called to take action in spreading this transformative message. This episode encourages you to actively participate in global evangelism, focusing on regions with significant spiritual needs such as China, Indonesia, Russia, and Africa. Be inspired to contemplate the importance of your salvation and how you can contribute to sharing God's love and reconciliation with the world, fulfilling your calling as an ambassador for Christ. Tune in and be motivated to embrace your mission with renewed passion and purpose.

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W. Austin Gardner:

Welcome to the World Evangelism Podcast. I'm your host, austin Gardner, and I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to be here with you and to share with you different things that might motivate you and inspire you to world evangelism. We are the people of God. If you've been born again, he has done something very special in saving you and bringing you into the family, and he has great things that he wants to do with and through you. Now I know that if you're listening to this, you are already a Bible person. You probably already have a great interest in getting the gospel to the world, and I believe that we're in exciting times. We're in times when we've got to watch and see what is God going to do, from things that are happening in the financial markets to World War III looming down our faces Right in front of us. We see things happening Countries, africa, everywhere in the world. It seems to be happening, and you and I have a responsibility to be ambassadors, and it's a privilege. In 2 Corinthians 5, verses 18 to 21, the Lord tells us, through the Apostle Paul speaking to us, that all things belong to God and that God has reconciled us to himself. God came to us and brought us to him through Jesus Christ. And after he did that, he gave us the ministry of reconciliation, and you know what the ministry of reconciliation is. It was that God was in Christ. Don't mistake that. God loves everybody in the world. God, the Father, is a God of extreme love for everyone. He wants all to be saved and he was in Christ. When Jesus Christ was here on the earth, god was in heaven and God was here. Christ was the God-man, he Christ was Jesus was God in human flesh and he was here reconciling the world unto himself. He reached out to the lost world and he drew us to him, and he's done that to everybody. It says here reconciling the world, not the believer, but the world to himself. And he says and he didn't count their sins against them, he did not impute their trespasses unto them. So now we know that it's God that loves us and it's God that loves the world and it's God that wants to save the world. And it's not up to man to reach out to God. God has already reached out to man. We're not trying to find God. God's come looking for us and thank God. We accepted the gift, the offer, then he has given us this message of reconciliation, this word. We have good news, exciting good news. We get to tell people that God loves them, that God has already done everything to save all of them and that God doesn't count any of their sins against them as he reaches out to them and he has made me his ambassador to beg them as though it was, as even though God himself were in me begging them, and when I ask them, I'm asking them in the name of, in the power of Jesus, to be reconciled to God. God's already come. All they've got to do is accept the free gift and be reconciled. And you know, god took Jesus, who knew no sin, and made him sin so that we could be made the very righteousness of God.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now, in the verses here, there's some interesting truths. As ambassadors, we are sent from a friendly government to represent our government, which has good intentions with the foreign country. Now you need to hear this when you're on bad relations, you pull your ambassador, you don't send your ambassador. So whenever the United States really gets messed up with another country, they pull their ambassador out of that country. But God didn't pull us out. God put us in and he sent us as his ambassador because he has good intentions, because he loves people, because he cares about people and he wants them to be saved. We're here to represent Jesus, to represent God, who has friendly intentions. He loves the world, for God so loved the world to give his only begotten son. Now you're going to have a hard time representing God if you don't know him intimately. He is our king. We must know him and we must know his heart. You know, as ambassadors, we don't say what we think or speak what we think. We say and think what we're supposed to, because we're on the part of our king. I used to live in Idaquipa, peru, and every time anything big happened in the world, the news people would go interview the ambassador from the United States and the ambassador would say this is what our president thinks, and so we're not here to tell them what we think. We're to speak on behalf of our king. Now, there were great problems between our king and this world and all the world.

W. Austin Gardner:

Man made sin and sin brought death and punishment upon this entire world. But God, in his sweet and gracious love, comes down to reconcile the world to himself. He comes back to bring back that which left him, to bring them back. God hasn't changed. He is still holy and he's still pure, but he has moved our sin off the table. He has taken it out of the way. It says he does not impute their trespasses unto them. He doesn't put on their account. He doesn't put on our account. He doesn't put on the worst people's account what they've done. You see, god loves them and God cares, and he has paid the sin debt of the entire world. I need you to know that God is not angry, god is not hateful, god is not designed to send the whole world to hell. All the opposite of that is true. If you know God, you know that he wants every man everywhere to be saved. If you know God, you know this. He's the one who initiated the entire plan of salvation. Salvation is God's plan to reach us. Salvation is God coming to us. He wants all men everywhere to be saved.

W. Austin Gardner:

Man never went to God and said God, we've got a problem, we'd like to solve it. God came to man when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they hid, ashamed and embarrassed. But Jesus, god came to them. God came to man. That's been the way it's been since the very beginning of the world. Adam sinned, he hid, he tried to fix it on his own world. Adam sinned, he hid, he tried to fix it on his own, but God, the Father, came in tenderness and he took away Adam's fears. He took away Adam's sin and he made an offering for Adam's sin and he placed that offering on a substitute. That substitute was a lamb and that lamb was a representative of Jesus and he restored their relationship.

W. Austin Gardner:

Let's get something straight it's never been the man, it's never been the human who is seeking to fix the problem with God and restore the relationship, never has been man. It's always been the God of heaven who is in the reconciling business. He comes to us when we don't deserve it. He comes to us when we have no reason to expect it. And if you understand those truths, you can understand the heart of our God enough that world evangelism will all of a sudden become an extremely important part of our lives. Every church, every pastor, every layman listening to this ought to understand that church is like the ambassador's house. It's like where the ambassador lives, an embassy, and it's a place where God is represented and you and I are to take his message.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now let's clear some things up. Let's get them real clear in our hearts and our minds. God already loves all men everywhere. In John 3.16, he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish. God loves everybody. Right here in the passage of Scripture that I've been discussing, in 2 Corinthians 5.18, it says he reconciled us to himself. He said he reconciled us to himself and then he gave us a ministry of reconciliation.

W. Austin Gardner:

You see, what you need to understand is Jesus didn't come into the world to condemn the world. It was never God's will. God didn't put a tree of death in the garden, he put a tree of life in the garden. And Jesus didn't come into the world to condemn them. John 3, 17,. The Bible says that God didn't send his son to the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved. See, jesus came to take the sins of the world on himself and all the consequences of those sins.

W. Austin Gardner:

John 1.29, when John the Baptist sees Jesus, ends John 1 29,. When John the Baptist sees Jesus, he says Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Do you understand what's happening there? You see, god doesn't want anyone to go to hell. God wants all men to be saved. God wants all men to come to the knowledge of the truth and God has given Jesus as a ransom for all. That's straight out of the Bible, hard to argue with that. That's 1 Timothy, 2, 3 through 6. And Jesus takes a death for all men. That's Hebrews, chapter 2 and verse 9. He is the payment for our sins, but not ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. First John, 2.2.

W. Austin Gardner:

The call to salvation is a general call. It's not a particular call. It's a call to everyone for all to be saved. The Bible says in Matthew 11, 28,. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. In Revelation 22, 17,. He says Come if you hear, come and if you're thirsty, come. Whosoever will come, let him come and take the water of life freely.

W. Austin Gardner:

In Acts 17, 30, he commands all men everywhere to repent. You see, when you understand that, you understand we're ambassadors. We're here to tell everybody Jesus has come to save you. Jesus has come to rescue you, to give you new life in eternity, but new life now, to free you from all of that and to bring you into a personal, intimate relationship with the sweet, loving Father that we have In Matthew 28, 19,.

W. Austin Gardner:

He says go you, therefore, and teach all nations. Go, teach all nations, make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and teach them to observe all things which I have commanded you. In Acts 1, verse 8, he said I want you to go to the very utter limits of the world. I want everybody to know. Now, first thing I want you to see today is God loves everybody and God is the peacemaker. God is the reconciler. You see, in 2 Corinthians 5.18, he reconciled us, and then he said now I give you all the job of reconciling the world to me. In 2 Corinthians 5.19, he's already reconciled the world. And then he's told us I've already paid the sin debt, I've already taken their sin off the table. All you've got to do is go announce the good news to them.

W. Austin Gardner:

No one anywhere has ever been saved because of their own effort or their own merit or what they deserved. In Philippians, chapter 3 and verse 9, paul said he wanted to be found in Jesus, not having his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. See, we trust Jesus and what he did for us on the cross at Calvary. It's always God loving first. 1 John 4, 19,. We love him because he first loved us.

W. Austin Gardner:

In Romans 5, 8, god proved God showed God, commended His love toward us while we were still sinners. In verse 6, while we were ungodly and while we were too weak to do anything for ourselves. God loves us, god loves the world and God made peace with the blood of His cross to reconcile all things unto himself, all that are in the earth and all that are in heaven. God wants to bring us back to what we had before Colossians, chapter 1, verses 20 to 22. He said that those that were sometimes alienated, far and distant, long ways off, enemies because we did wrong and wicked stuff. His death, jesus saves us and he presents us holy and unblameable and unreprovable. So on the cross.

W. Austin Gardner:

God laid the sins of the entire world on Jesus In Isaiah 53, 5 and 6,. He laid on Him the iniquity of us all and it pleased the Father, in verse 10, to see his son suffer and pay the debt of our sins, our sins on Jesus. And he promised Jesus you've paid their sin debt. You didn't know they will be saved eternally. All over the world people are trying to get good enough to get God to accept them. Everybody wants to please God. They want to struggle to get God to accept them, to love them, but God already loves every one of them. God loves the world. God wants the world to be saved. It ought to be our heart's desire like Paul's was in Romans 10, 1 down to 4, that our people, the world, would be saved.

W. Austin Gardner:

Many people know about God, but they don't know the God of the Bible and they think they've got to do works to get to God. And it's never about what we do. It's a pure act of love and grace towards us. They're ignorant of what Jesus did on the cross. They're ignorant that it's all paid and all fixed and all ready and all they've got to do is accept it. They go about trying to establish their own righteousness and to prove that they're worthy. But you see, jesus Christ is the end of the law. There's no more working to get saved.

W. Austin Gardner:

Jesus already paid the debt. Now we are privileged that he would call us ambassadors. We are privileged that he would call us ambassadors. We are privileged that he would call us ambassadors In verse 20, 2 Corinthians 5.20,. We are ambassadors and we get to beg people to come to trust Jesus in Christ's debt. We speak to men on behalf of Jesus Christ. He paid the sin debt. We speak to men on behalf of Jesus Christ. He paid the sin debt. They're already reconciled. He's just waiting on them to believe, to trust, to accept that gift. The way has already been made, the payment has already been paid. The sin is off the table. It's just a matter of them believing God, who has done everything that they can all be saved. You see, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life and we have been given the sweet blessing of sharing the good news that God loves them and is ready for them to be saved. He has already reconciled us. He's given us that ministry. He is reconciling the world to himself and we get to go and speak for Jesus, given as a gift to us.

W. Austin Gardner:

We have the privilege of telling people that God isn't mad. God isn't mad. God isn't mad. God loves them. God has made a way for them to be saved. Sin's off the table. They don't have to be afraid. They don't have to be ashamed. They don't have to run and hide. They don't have to get out in leaves to cover their nakedness. God's already done all of that. Through Jesus, he has committed to us the privilege and the responsibility.

W. Austin Gardner:

We know Jesus paid the price. We're not paying it. We know that he is not counting their sins against them. He doesn't keep up a record of their sins. He said I paid that sin debt. We know they can be saved. We know how they can be saved. We know they can be saved. We know how they can be saved. We know that God is begging them through us. We know that they must simply believe. We know that freedom that we have in Christ because of the same gift that he gave us. He didn't hold our sins against us. He came to us. He changed our lives.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now I want to just close by saying it's time to step out in righteousness. It's time to step out and tell the truth. We know that God is not holding their sins against us and he's not holding their sins against them. We know we're speaking on Christ's behalf. We're on a mission, just like Jesus was on a mission.

W. Austin Gardner:

Jesus said in John 20, 21,. Then said Jesus then again peace be unto you, as my Father sent me. Even so, send I you. He sent us, just like his Father sent him. We know that not only did he forgive our sins, but he made us perfect and righteous, the very perfect righteousness of God in Jesus. He placed us in Jesus. He sees us as being in Jesus. We know that he only forgave our sins, but he did all that. We go forth with great confidence that Jesus is the Savior and he will save.

W. Austin Gardner:

John 4, 42,. He said to the woman Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard ourselves. The women at the well had run into town and told them about Jesus. And now they heard for themselves and we say that God has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. The Savior of the world 1 John 4.14. It's all bought and paid for and he's the Savior of all men, especially those that believe. 1 Timothy 4.10.

W. Austin Gardner:

So would you with me right now, acknowledge that we have a great salvation in God through Jesus Christ? Would you think about the great goodness of God through Jesus and how he loves the entire world? Would you think about the great privilege and responsibility you have to tell people about this great salvation? Realize that as you teach and preach, god will beg people through you to accept the gift. As I close today, I want you to know that you should pray about where God wants you in world evangelism and you should pray about how God can use you and you should look to God and trust Him to take your life and use you greatly for Him. Your church ought to be going to the mission field and sending people. You ought to be getting involved. You ought to be giving sacrificially, above what you give to support your local church. We are ambassadors. We have the good news. We must take it to the world.

W. Austin Gardner:

I think today about China and the great need in China. I think today about Indonesia. I think about Russia. I think about the continent of Africa and so many people are just ready to trust. They just need a preacher. So many places are asking for a preacher and can't find one. God wants to send you. Would you consider going? Would you give your life to take the gospel to the world and tell people about Jesus? God bless you. Thank you for listening to the World Evangelism Podcast. Share it with other people. Help me try to touch people's hearts with the goal of sharing Jesus with the world. God bless you. See you next time.