So Ariana and I were at the bus stop in the rain and it was at that moment in time that
I realized that the umbrella that we were using was the umbrella that we had purchased
while we were in Gatlinburg, Tennessee on vacation several years ago.
Now on the day in question when we were, it began to rain, we went to go explore Gatlinburg
and I said well this is going to stink, we're going to get soaking wet, go and drop the
shop and so on and so everybody and their brother would sell an umbrella and the umbrella
were as you can imagine not cheap, right?
They were not inexpensive and you know kind of know me a little bit, I'm cheap.
So I like inexpensive things, I don't want to pay more for something than I have to pay,
try to be good stewards of money, that kind of thing.
And so as we're standing at the bus stop in the rain I'm realizing that this umbrella
is the umbrella that we bought and paid for in Gatlinburg and we paid what I thought was
down on that day was too much money for it.
And it did serve us well in Gatlinburg that day and another day on that same trip and
we've used it many times since then.
As I'm standing at the bus stop I realized we've used this umbrella an awful lot of times.
I mean I think we paid probably 15 bucks for it which is a lot for an umbrella in my mind
but by that time we had used it probably 30, 40 times and I'm starting to think now it's
starting to be where it's almost economical right.
You know you have an umbrella and you pay a price for it and you use it 30, 40 times
and it's still good.
And just at that moment as I did that I looked up and I realized that the umbrella had a
defect.
There was something wrong with it and as we looked up there and you can see the little
plastic rod, the umbrella is plastic on the inside, come down and it was out of place
and the umbrella was sagging in on the one side.
I'm like oh there you go.
That's probably the end of this you know $15 umbrella.
I was just starting to think it might have been worth the money and now it's no good
anymore.
And then I noticed that over to the left a little bit was a little cap and I realized
that that little plastic rod that was coming down that was in the wrong place making it
sag in could fit in the little plastic cap.
So I pushed it over, put in a little plastic cap and just like that the umbrella was perfect.
I'm like it's still good.
The umbrella is still good.
I still have the umbrella still at my house next time it rains I may use it again.
And then it occurred to me that the price that we paid on the day that we bought it,
it seemed like it was too much.
But then afterwards it started to really pay dividends.
You know what I'm saying?
It really started to pay off and it really was kind of getting to be the point where
the price was paid maybe wasn't too much.
And then I thought it was broke.
It was coming apart, wasn't going to work anymore and I thought we were going to have
to get rid of it and I thought well that's the end of the value.
But all I did was make an adjustment and all of a sudden it was almost like new again.
So it was back to functioning still and it's still adding value.
As I was standing there Arana and I were talking about it and I said that's like an inspirational
moment.
She said what?
And I said because Jesus came, He lived, He died, He rose again.
And everybody that day, the day of Jesus' death, they thought that price, that price
is too high.
It's terrible to see that Jesus is dying.
In fact, they thought He was going to redeem Israel, thought He was going to bring Israel
back into their own freedom or whatever out from underneath Rome etc.
And He didn't do that.
And they said oh no, we thought He was going to save us and He didn't save us.
The price is way too high.
And then when He was resurrected they started thinking, okay well I mean it's terrible what
He went through but the value of resurrection is substantial, right?
And then it started to kind of waffle and people made mistakes.
People have made mistakes.
You guys notice that in the last couple thousand years the church, the quote unquote church
have made a lot of mistakes.
Sometimes not even being in the church that they were supposed to be, right?
But every time, every time a Christian or a church focuses their attention back on God,
they put their desires back where they belong in the hands of the Lord.
They say no, Jesus is Lord.
God is the one.
He's the one who did it.
The value is returned 100%.
Every time somebody wanders and starts to think that someone or something is more important
than what God did and who God is, it starts to fall apart.
That's it.
All the value we get out of that.
But then as soon as you redirect your attention, repent and turn back to God and get back into
shape if you will, get back to being what you're supposed to be in, God starts to pour
out value again.
And I thought, man that's powerful.
That's awesome.
God is an awesome God.
And that's the inspirational moment.
That's what this is all about.
It's not about what I think or even what you think.
It's not about what Tony Pate thinks or what song our day is like.
It's about what is God saying?
What is God saying to us as Tony is storming out of his room?
Anyway, what is God saying to us throughout the week?
And you know what?
I would say this.
If you get a message from God throughout the week, you really ought not to do it to yourself.
In fact, if you get a message from God on Monday morning around noon, you're at lunch
or something, something happens, you ought to share that, whatever that is, with literally
everybody you bump into all week long.
You think God says things, no word of God falls to the ground way for that.
Never.
And when he says something, you see something like that, you share it with anybody all the
time, anywhere you are, whatever, whatever you're doing.
And don't wait for it to resonate with the sermon or go to Bible study and ask questions
about it.
You say, God said this to me.
You know what?
If you get it a little bit wrong, God's still going to use it.
Because the truth is, when it comes to God speaking, it doesn't matter a whole lot what
comes out of your mouth.
If you're speaking for the Lord, if you get it wrong, He'll fix it.
He'll take care of it.
I go back to one of the most famous illustrations in my young Christian life, when Chris Coleman
stood up in front of me, he slid back to church and he said, he came in church one Sunday,
he looked around and there was nobody new.
He had planned to preach a sermon about the gospel, about reaching people for Jesus so
he could reach people there for Jesus that day.
And there was nobody new.
And so he switched up and instead he preached a sermon on piling.
And he wasn't sure right until that moment what God wanted him to do.
So he preached for an hour and 10 minutes on piling.
At the end of which one person responded to the gospel and got saved.
And they said, what you said about Jesus?
What you said about what Jesus can do in me and how he's calling me and all that?
And he's like, I didn't say any of that.
So when the sermon starts, you just go, okay, God, you speak to me and tell me what I need
to hear today.
And whatever I have planned, God can work it for your good, whether I get it right or
not.
And that's the beauty of sermons.
That's the beauty of worship songs.
You can sing a worship song a thousand times.
Probably not because that's a lot of Sundays, but you can sing it a hundred times.
You can sing it a hundred times and never notice that there's a little phrase in there
that speaks to you about your salvation or your life in a way that was meant to be.
And then that hundred times, that hundred first times, you sing that song and go, read
that literally those four words, that's my life.
That God put it in that song and I've been singing it all the time and I never notice.
So I would encourage you this moment in time, it's mainly to remind us about that.
Remind us that God is speaking.
I submit to you, if you are a follower or believer in the Lord and you go seven days
and hear nothing from God, that's more on you than it is on him because he is speaking.
You can go to your Bible and read and the Bible speaks, always the Bible speaks.
That's the beauty of it.
We have that life when we always have the word of God who would always speak to us.
You'll always find something of yourself in there and more and more of him, less of us
and more of him I hope.
So did someone come prepared today and say, yes, I wanted to share something?
Okay, we'll go here because this is Frank Roney.
So I want to call for work for tech support one day a week and this Friday I was on call
and I got a lot of really weird and difficult calls and at the point that I got this call
in question I was rather frustrated already.
I got a call and this lady said, I really messed up.
That was the opening of the call.
Oh boy.
I said that a lot of times.
Yeah.
I said, I wanted to enter in a $57 paid out and I accidentally entered in $570 and then
I tried to fix it a few times and then so we went down this rabbit hole like 45 minutes
of tracking everything back and tracking out what we needed to put in to fix it and then
I was in a moment mad because I was like, you just called me before you do all this.
But then reflecting on it I was thinking that is us to God.
When we try to fix things in our own power most of the time we just make it worse and
worse and make a big mess of things but if we hand our issues and our problems over to
God He knows what needs to be done to sort it out.
That's good stuff.
As you were just speaking I had some reason the image popped in my head trying to wash
the car and the car is dirty and you go get filthy rags and try to wash the car with filthy
rags and just make it worse and worse and worse and our righteousness is out of filthy
rags and we're always trying to clean ourselves up with our righteousness rather than relying
on His.
Oh my goodness.
What a great, great illustration.
I had a song lyrics.
It's really only a couple of lines.
It's the main part of the chorus.
The whole song is really good.
It's a song by Lecrae and it was one of the first introductions to Christian music I had.
So when I heard it again a couple of weeks ago I was like, man I forgot all about this
song and how awesome it is.
And the beginning of the chorus says, all the stuff that's on, or used to want a lot
of things, all the stuff that's on TV's, education, cars and clothes, fashion, lights and jewelry,
focused on the wrong stuff.
Now I got my eyes on you and now I know that God is an eye.
So one of the reasons that sticks out with me really well is because growing up as kids
we see all this stuff on TV and all this fancy lifestyle.
It's even worse nowadays.
It's basically shoved down kids' throats on social media that this is the good life.
You have to have money.
You have to have fancy cars.
You have to have fancy clothes.
It's portrayed so much now that this is what the good life is.
In reality that's not what the good life is.
The good life is knowing that God is enough and knowing that everything we have in God
is enough.
Even if what you think you have is not a lot, and this is something I struggle with really
bad, is realizing the things I have in my life are a blessing from God.
Even though my house might be falling apart, even though I might have to constantly fix
a car because my car breaks down or correct my kids because they don't listen, all of
that stuff is a blessing from God.
It is enough because God gave it to me.
If God didn't give it to me then I wouldn't need it.
There's no use for it.
Since I have what I have and it's God gave it to me and God gave me the ability to fix
my house, to fix my car, to raise my kids, then every single thing I have in my life
is enough.
That's a good word.
Yeah, I think as long as we're led by the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the private
life is enough, you could have everything you think you want and you just discover more
things you want.
But if you can remember the kingdom principles that you're talking about, remember the value
of God and how God values things, then you can set that aside and things start to get
off.
It's so hard for people who don't know Christ, and it was hard for me, I don't remember ever
thinking anything I had was good.
I had a relationship, I eventually had a wife and she was doing a great job as a wife really
and I had a daughter Alicia and she was pretty awesome and I don't remember ever being better
by her, ever with anything.
Always wanted better, always wanted different, always wanted more and in Christ I'm ashamed
if I would think that something's not good enough that God has provided for me and I
started to feel like, come on Dan, that's awesome, what are you doing?
Devaluing the awesome things that God has given me.
Good word, good word.
Over here.
Real quick, four things though.
First one was, it's so cool, only God can do it first and then God's people did it with
me and I could do it back to God and not just be a people.
And that first thing is, when I was a kid, I grew up, I always believed in God because
he was the only one I ever had.
I know who he was, I know what he did.
Despite his gender, there was this calmness in my life, no matter what, like somebody was
there when no one else was and it was the coolest thing ever.
I used to sing songs and I was grateful and it was like, it felt like someone was there.
And when I was 23 and I gave my life to Jesus, I'll never forget it, it was the coolest thing
ever.
The coolest thing I used to sing all my life was out of reverence or just appreciation,
but the first time I got to do something I'd never do in my entire life was worship him.
And that's what we get to do every day.
And it was the most valuable thing ever because it was the first time that I actually knew
that I was allowed to worship this God.
He was worthy to worship.
And the reason I say that is because, and then about three years after that when I was
at Cedar Creek, I remember one time I was going through a lot.
I was wondering about church and you guys probably know, but I have such a burden for
sometimes, some things.
And I was just like going off in my vehicle and God said, can I talk for five seconds?
And I'm like, no you can't.
You don't understand what's going on.
This is going on.
Can I have five seconds?
No.
No you can't.
And I keep hearing him say, can I have five seconds?
I said, can I just say one thing?
I said, fine.
Say whatever you want.
It's not going to change anything.
Nothing's going to change.
Go.
And I'm waiting and he said, God said I love you.
Is that a no?
Yeah.
Everything I said to stop.
They didn't care.
I was like, yeah.
I love you.
I'll be okay then.
And I just needed to hear that.
You know, it was just so cool that God's just telling you, I love you.
I am going to stop loving you.
I'm never going to stop going to that cross.
I don't want to cross one, but I would never stop going to that cross.
I would never stop being down for a second.
I'm always going to be there.
And then my third thing is real quick, I'll be quick about this, but any teen or kids raise your hand and grab the answers are easy.
Which one is better for you? They're good, but which one's better? Cake or an apple?
An apple, okay. What about candy or an orange?
Okay, one more.
Pizza's good, I love pizza and I love a lot of things, but pizza or carrots, broccoli, apples, bananas,
good bread. Which one's better? Kids.
Okay, the question is why is it better? Here's the answer.
Any of you kids heard the word nutrients? It stands for the word nutrition.
Nutrients are something that the body needs. When you eat some cake, yes, it makes you feel good, it's a good thing, but it's not nutritious.
The body says, well, that's not good for me, and then you know what you do after that, you go to the toilet later.
But that's the idea. But the other stuff you eat, it goes, oh, that's good, that goes to my brain, this goes to my blood, this goes to my body, this goes to my soul, this goes everywhere I wanted to go.
Wow, I need this, this makes me strong, this makes me actually heal from this, this is so cool, I need this.
So the reason I'm sharing this is that God is good. His word is good. Worship is good. Everything he does is good.
Get that goodness in you. All the other stuff, you do need it, maybe you do need it for a second, but it's not good.
God is good. I also want to encourage you, I call this the fire test, it's just what some name I give it, but if you ever heard of something inspirational, share with me.
I'll share something back with you. I don't care if it's a movie, it's a video, does God have to be in it? God is good.
It could have God, about being God. I've seen so many Marvel movies that have spoken the gospel without them just, like literally just saying, I just want to yell to the audience, no, now share the gospel, stop, no, you're there, you're there, you're there, no, wait.
No, they don't, because it's not full-set after. But there's so many movies out there and shows and TV's and things to be watched every day that are screaming a chance to give Jesus the glory.
So I encourage you, send each other videos, reach out to each other, I like to call it the fire test. You send me something, I want to see if mine is just as good as yours.
I've got some all good Christian rappers, I want to hear your Christian rappers, I want to hear if your stuff is as good as mine. We're not competing, but there's nothing wrong with a healthy competition, because that's the idea, is do you have what you have is good?
Let's find out. I think one of the most inspirational things is seeing the answering of prayers, and it's something that I feel like we don't really address as much in inspirational moments.
And so I was just thinking of a few things that I've been praying over for the past few months, that I've asked people to pray over, and I've seen those prayers get answered, or at least progress towards a solution.
A few weeks ago I asked a prayer for my mom, she gave her two full time jobs, taking care of her in-laws, and she is doing great. She had found a home for her in-laws to go to, something comfortable where they'll have the care that they need, and so that salvation has been answered.
I've prayed for a lot over the past few weeks. I've prayed for other family members and stuff for myself, I've prayed for a changing mindset, and I feel that being answered. Just the way I address things in my life, in my work, in my relationship, it's shifted a lot over the past few months.
I've prayed for everything and everyone, and I just feel like we should address that more, it's one of people's inspirational things and finds it.
Hey man, I just got a text from Ms. Chris, early this last week that there was a lady at the life station who basically received a miraculous healing, and we see those things all the time, and so they shared with me mid-week that a lot of times we...
As I was thinking about the sermon today, I had like three texts that I felt like the Lord was leading me toward, and I was excited about all of them, frankly. I was like, this is going to be awesome, I haven't preached that in a while, I haven't ever preached that before, and I was like, I get really excited.
And I just started to kind of like unfold the sermon in my mind and think about what it could be like, but then on Thursday morning, which usually my sermon is well underway by Wednesday morning, on Thursday morning, I was still kind of like half asleep, and I was dreaming.
And as I was dreaming in that kind of light sleep that you're in right before you wake up, the Lord showed me something really important, and I started drilling down on that and thinking about it, and as I woke up, the Lord said, well, you, this is what I want you to show, this is what I want you to see.
And the sermon just kind of like fell in place, almost like what you're about to see it, and then between yesterday and Friday, I kind of finished it up. So it's got to be a little different than a normal sermon, because only once before have I been, that I can think of, have I been in this exact place where God kind of did that, gave it through a dream, and gave me exactly what I was going to say before I ever got up here.
Usually I get, you know, you're going to, here's the points, here's what you're going to preach, here's what you're going to say, and then as I'm preaching, the Holy Spirit's, you know, leading me throughout the process, and I trust that he'll still do that today.
So last week, we looked at Acts chapter one, if you'll recall, and in Acts chapter one, it said, you shall be my witnesses. And we talked a lot about what it meant, what it is to be a witness, and we talked about how the word witness there is martyro, means die to self, and the example, and that kind of thing.
And so in Acts one eight, it actually says it like this, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, even to the remotest parts of the earth.
And I pointed out how the power that they would receive was for a purpose, that it was for the purpose to be a witness like that. That's the main purpose of the power. And the main goal of God is to bring people into relationship with him.
So in a sense, what they would be doing, what they're called to do, is to go and introduce the world to Jesus.
So there are going to be people out there at that time that they were in that had no idea that there was such a thing as a Messiah. No idea that there would be a Christ.
No idea that there would be a Savior arising out of the Jewish people who would be a son of David, who would be the King of the Kingdom of God, any of that.
They were going to go out and introduce Jesus to all kinds of people from all kinds of situations.
And so as I was dreaming about it, and as the Lord started to speak to me about it on Thursday morning, I realized that in this room, there are probably people who come from different situations.
And certainly dialing in, watching on Facebook, or listening to the podcast later, people come from all different situations.
And we have people in Guam that have been listening fairly faithfully. You can assume that their background as they came to be Christians probably differs from ours.
There are different events and experiences that they have had. And so I got to thinking about that, and I got to thinking about it from a scriptural point of view.
And this is not going to be all inclusive. It's not going to include every possibility.
But I'm going to give you four possibilities that they had, we've seen examples of, they had already run into and they would likely run into again as they're being called to be witnesses.
And so you can flip the slide now. Click it again.
All right. So this is the first one. Okay. And it is when it got transferred over, it changed. Go back.
Yeah, it changed. That's weird. Okay. So in my notes, the introducing isn't all in caps, but the J is in caps for Jesus and the E-S-U-S is not in caps.
Okay. So it changed when we went through Google slides over to PowerPoint and it got here and that's what you get.
Okay. So how how changed? All right. So anyway, introducing all in capital letters, capital J, E-S-U-S.
Okay. So this is talking to people who have no background, no understanding necessarily and saying, let me tell you about Jesus.
This is what missionaries deal with a lot. Right. There's no Messiah knowledge. There's no Jewish knowledge. There's no Genesis. There's no nothing.
None of that is present. And we kind of start with this concept, which I think people can resonate with is all have sinned. Right.
Every time that I've been sharing, I like to use kind of a hybrid form of share Jesus without fear.
And probably the people who wrote shared Jesus out here would say just the opposite. They say share Jesus without fear is the hybrid.
And I'm using like a half a product or something like I'm not quite getting there, but I take share Jesus without fear.
And then I kind of boil in my own stuff and that's what I use.
And so at some point in time, you've got to get to the point where you say, well, do you know what the Bible said about that?
And the first thing the Bible said about mankind, everybody's situation, what makes everybody the same is all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
And so if you can get that person to resonate with the idea that they have done something that God would not be pleased with, then they you're moving in the right direction.
Right. Then you've got an idea that that you say, OK, so if you have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and according to Romans six, 23, the wages of that sin is death.
And that death means separation from God. If that's true, then you know you have a problem. Right.
And get them to kind of admit that they have a problem. And then it makes a lot of sense to move to here's a guy who's been solving your problem.
And so introducing Jesus is about taking Jesus to somebody being a witness, if you will, taking Jesus to somebody who does not know initially necessarily that they need a savior or a lord.
But I submit to you that they may resonate internally with that. They may go, you know, I don't feel right. I'm lacking. I have a hole.
It's vacuous in here and something is never going to be quite right. And you get to the point where you explain to them that they have sinned and you explain to them that they need a savior.
They need what they're lacking is a relationship with the one true God. Right. And you're there.
So this all have sinned. You need a savior. Jesus is that savior concept of introducing Jesus is about fleeing to safety.
So once they realize that there is a spiritual earthquake going on and it's going to destroy them, once they realize that their life is caught up in a spiritual tornado and they're going to be thrown around until they're destroyed.
Then they're willing to flee to safety. And that safety is found in Jesus.
Okay. Examples of this in scripture, one of the clearest and simplest examples in Acts 16, the jailer. Right.
So Paul and Silas are in prison. They're staying in the middle of the night. There's an earthquake comes. He thinks everybody's escaped.
Now he's going to kill himself because if he dies or if they escape, then he dies. That's his penalty under Roman law for losing his prisoners.
And by the way, I read at one point in time, I read a theologian who wrote on this and said that if he took his own life, his family would have been spared.
But if he didn't take his own life and he was found with his family and his prisoners were lost, his wife and children probably would have been killed as well.
So that's interesting. So him sacrificing himself was about saving his family, at least in part.
Okay. And plus he could have been drawn and quartered. That could have been the method of death. That's where they pull your arms and legs off.
That's really bad. Or crucified. Something pretty terrible could have been his method of death, which is run on your sword. You're dead in a few seconds. Right.
And so point is he was avoiding some kind of possible ramifications, but he knew all of a sudden that something was wrong and he fled to safety.
And he said, what must I do to be saved? And that is the kind of scriptural classic example of this person who needs introducing Jesus.
Right. They don't have any concept. They don't get why what's happened is happening. But now you can explain it to them.
There are some others that may be maybes. Okay. And I'm not saying I got all the example.
I didn't read the whole New Testament this week to go again and make sure we got everybody. All right. Included in these lists.
But another one might be the demoniac. Right. So he's inhabited by a bunch of demon guys, maybe a thousand or more. Right.
And there's no solution. There's no solution at all. Okay. There's no God bless you to his situation.
And then he encounters Jesus. And then Jesus is the solution. All right.
And in that moment, he get Jesus gets him to understand that he can deal with it. It just takes a second.
When we're at camp, you can bless you. We're at camp. You can. There was a boy who came to camp and he was clearly, I mean, I'll just say it, probably demonic possessed.
And he was acting out the whole time. In fact, he could have been he could have done certain he threw a chair at a kid.
I mean, it was bad. And we're constantly dealing with it for the first few days.
And then we got to talking with him and the camp director in particular talked to him about it and said, you know, are you professing to be a Christian?
Are you following Jesus? And I remember the words he used exactly. But he asked him and he said, yes, he was.
And I'm like, that's pretty weird to act that way. If you're Christian. Right.
But we determined very rapidly he could not say the word Jesus. He couldn't say he was a follower of Jesus.
He couldn't say Jesus Christ or Jesus, and he couldn't call Jesus Lord.
And so we led him to want to be free. We talked to him about the possibility of being free from the way he was behaving, for what was going on, what was possessing him, what was acting on him, that kind of thing.
And ultimately, he was he said in his own power and his own strength, mind you, gifted by God, obviously.
Right. God made him able to say, I want Jesus Christ as my Lord.
And he prayed earnest prayer, not led by anyone, not repeat after me, nothing like that earnest prayer, prayed to be saved.
From that moment on, that boy was changed. Now, twice more we've been to camp. We've seen that boy and he's never been the same. Right.
He's never been the same as he was before. Now, does he have issues still? Does he act up sometimes?
I think like, yes, but he's never lost his temper like that. He's never thrown a chair. He's never cussed anybody out.
It just doesn't happen anymore. He's been back the last two years. Right.
And so what I'm getting at is there comes a moment with somebody who doesn't really get it, there comes a moment at which they're willing to flee to safety.
The paralytic may have been that right before guys bring him lower down to the roof. He's paralyzed. He needs something.
They can't get to Jesus himself. It's like they rip a hole in the roof, lower him down and Jesus tell them, get up and walk.
Right. And he also forgives his sins. Again, he may or may not have had any knowledge who Jesus was.
He may not have been a Jewish man. He may not. You know, we don't know for sure the details there.
So these are maybes. The woman with the issue of blood, she'd been doctors for years trying to get a solution to her problem.
And it didn't work out and never got a solution. And then she come and snuck up and touch Jesus and it went away just like that.
Touched his robe. Right. And so these are maybes. But let me say this with certainty.
In this room, there are those who did not know they needed a savior, encountered Jesus and got saved.
So the job of the disciples was going to be to go out introducing Jesus to everywhere they went.
Okay. The second one then is introducing Jesus. Let's see if it's right.
Nope. Did it go? Yes, this one's right. Okay. Introducing Jesus.
So in the case of introducing Jesus, right, there are people in the world who know that it's about who you know.
Let's be very realistic. If you're on good terms with your boss, your work day goes better.
If you know the mayor and you have trouble with the police officer, you call the mayor, he takes care of it. Right.
And most of us don't have that luxury. Right. If you know the city police officer in your area and you have a question or whatever, you call them, text them.
They'll step in, give you the answers that you need. You got a good doctor. You go tell your doctor what's going on.
They've got a proposed solution. You follow the solution, you get better. Okay.
So in life, sometimes it's about who you know, who's going to take care of whatever the need is that you have.
And so it's about knowing the right one, knowing the one who's going to actually solve your problem.
Now, there's a lot of false gods in the world and there's a lot of people who are chasing after money, chasing after sex, chasing after a good report, like people, a good reputation. Thank you.
People think you're somebody special. Maybe you get straight A's because in school that keeps you out of a lot of trouble because all your teachers baby you because that's why you want straight A's.
You want to get straight A's so you can do that. Right. Or whatever. So sometimes it's about who you know.
And if you know the right one, your problems will be solved.
And so some of the witnessing that the disciples were going to have to do to go out is just to go out and explain to people Jesus is the one.
Jesus is the right one. Get connected to the one who came. You kind of see this in Acts a little bit when Paul is talking about the altar to an unknown God.
Right. But more importantly, he says in Acts 17 when he's standing in front of the Areopagus, he said, God used to think that he used to let that go.
But now that Jesus has come and been displayed, he expects all men to repent and turn to him.
Right. And so we can say to people, Jesus is the one that you need.
Examples in scripture of this that are pretty clear. One was Athens, the altar to an unknown God.
The other is the Samaritan woman at the well. Maybe. Right. Because she is sort of Jewish. Sort of. Right.
She's a Samaritan, so she's not a pure blood Jew. But she did believe in the worship of the one true God.
They just believe they can do it at the wrong place. And she even questioned Jesus about that.
Right. She said, you say you got to do it there. We say we can do it over here. You know, which one's right?
Kind of thing. And Jesus was basically saying, you're missing the point.
Okay. Ask of me and I will give you living water and you'll never thirst again.
And so basically, the disciples going out was going to be about introducing Jesus, showing Jesus that he's the right one.
I went to a conference, showing people that Jesus is the right one.
I went to a conference and I went and sat down in the room and I was going to teach a 45-minute lesson at this conference.
And then people will come and sign in and whatever.
Well, in the room was a couple of guys who are pretty well known for what they teach. Right.
So they could have been the teacher. But also in the room was somebody whose job it was to introduce me.
So there was a volunteer of the church that we were at in the classroom. He was there.
And it's when it come time for the speaking to happen, he got up and he said,
now introducing Pastor Daniel Stevenson, pastor of New High School Baptist Church East Toledo, director of Life Station.
This is what he's here to talk about today. He gave me a kind of like a one paragraph synopsis, an introduction.
But it could have been either one of those other guys.
It could have been either one of them talking about even some of the same things that I was going to talk about.
I was encouraged that they were there to listen to what I was talking about because they were
important on the topic. Right. So they could have brought similar lesson.
Now they did at point while I was talking interject certain things. Right.
So they had things to say, but they were not the teacher.
And you understand, for example, when God says honor and obey your parents, your parents are not your salvation. Right.
So to honor and obey your parents and sin in honoring and obeying your parents would still be wrong. Right.
So my mom or my dad tells me to why if I lie, it's still a sin against God, even though I'm obedient to my parents.
So when should you be disobedient to other authorities, other masters?
We've got to know the one master. You got to know the one guy, the guy who's the one who's making intercession for you at the right hand
and throw to God. That's the guy that you never cross. Right.
And so this kind of introducing Jesus was about helping them meet the person that getting connected to the person
that was the solution for the real problem. OK.
Then the next one should say introducing Jesus and Jesus is all.
Look at that. OK. Good job. OK. Very good.
So introducing Jesus is really important for us today.
Maybe it could speak to you in this way today.
Consider that you haven't really known the one you know.
And that's very dangerous to claim the name of Jesus, to think you know Jesus and not know Jesus.
Maybe the single worst place that you could be because in that place there is no actual sacrifice for sins.
To claim the name of Jesus, say I am a Christian and to not actually be a Christian is the probably the absolute worst place that you could possibly be.
And there were people who said that they knew God and Jesus is God the son.
So they identified with God's mercies in the form of God the father, but they did not accept his God the father's mercies in the form of God the son.
So this is going to involve discerning blessings and misunderstandings.
So here's the thing. I know people who have claimed to be Christian.
I ran into a lady this week and I'm not going to name her.
I'm not judging anybody, anything like that.
But this lady was explaining to me about all the troubles and trials and difficulties that she's been facing.
And I was explaining how sometimes some of those things are best handled in the spiritual realm.
Some of our illnesses, some of our sicknesses, some of our troubles are spiritual in nature.
You say, why am I sick? I'm sick because my spirit is not right.
When Jesus sent out the 70 and they were casting demons out in evil spirits, what was happening?
People were getting healed. That's what was happening.
So when they would cast out a demon, the person that the demon was affecting was healed.
Demons are not good for you.
Tony Tate is talking about what's good for you, eat what's good for you.
Right, Tony Tate? Eat what's good for you, eat God.
Eating demons, evil spirits, not good for you.
And so when you use them for comfort, you take them up in your life, you let them start to affect you internally, that is the wrong way.
It could be anything, any false God is the same way.
So anything that you start to think is important, if it starts to be important like God, that thing will pollute you.
When you're 19, and I know this for a fact, 3 liters of Sprite, a bag of donuts, a fast food sandwich, french fries, and a donut for breakfast may be an acceptable diet.
It's kind of what I ate.
Similar, basically I might switch out one sweet for another, that kind of thing.
But protein was just what was in the sandwich, that's all the protein I got all day long.
And it was mostly running on sugar.
And at that time it didn't seem to be killing me.
When you are taking false gods and their teachings and saying it's all good, everything is right, everything is fine.
So after I explained that to her, she said, yeah, everything is right with my life.
I really don't have anything that's wrong.
After she just got done telling me all the things that were wrong, and then I said, well let's just look at it from a spiritual point of view.
What spiritually, is there anything that you need to do?
And I was just asking, I wasn't saying, I was just asking.
And she said, no, everything is right with my life.
Now everything is not right with your life.
If you start off with everything is wrong with your life, you can't trade it out.
And so the point is this.
Sometimes you're going to have to discern the blessings and misunderstandings.
And people say everything is right.
And you say, well you just said everything is not right.
So don't you think at least you should examine?
Don't you think at least you should have the questions?
And that's what sometimes introducing Jesus is all about.
Considering that he, Jesus, may be showing the way already.
You could be interpreting signs while you're doing this.
Be careful about interpreting signs.
I understand.
Scripture says be careful about interpreting signs.
But Jesus also said, look, you can judge the sky, but you can't see what's right before your eyes.
And so there's people that are interpreting signs to mean that it's okay to do what they want to do that's not what God wants them to do.
And you need to step in there and say you're misinterpreting that sign.
Right?
I was talking with a man who I've known much of my life and he came to be a Christian, a professor of the Christian.
But he has some behaviors that are definitely not biblical and he has a different kind of a different version of Christianity.
And I was asking him about what was going on.
He said, well, God has called me to do this.
And I said, oh, really?
That's awesome.
You know what God wants you to do.
If you know for sure that's what God wants you to do, pour yourself into that.
He said, well, God has called me to do it.
I know for a fact.
And I said, well, can you tell me the experience of how you came to realize that God has told you with absolute certainty that's what you're supposed to do?
He said, well, I was driving my car and my car broke down on a rainy day and I didn't want to get out of my car because it was raining nasty outside.
And he said, I'm sitting there and my car's not running in the rain.
I'm sitting on the side of the road.
And I said to God, I said, God, I need my car to start.
Make a start on this next time.
And it didn't.
He turned the key.
So I turned the key and it didn't start.
And I said to God, God, is it something I'm not doing?
And the car didn't turn the key and it didn't start.
And he said, God, I know I felt like I was supposed to do this.
This ministry, this nonprofit, I felt like I was supposed to do that.
Am I supposed to do that?
And he turned the key and it started.
And from that moment on, he said, that's what God wants me to do.
That's his whole idea of knowing how God is telling him what to do.
That's not biblical.
Right.
That's not even putting out a fleece like Gideon.
Right.
It's not even that.
It's just hokey pokey.
You're just messing around.
Right.
It's not the real thing.
And so knowing what God wants you to do is about talking to the God of the universe,
to his son, Jesus Christ.
And Jesus does talk to us.
And you may get it in the scripture.
The Bible says, do that.
You go, that's what I got to do right there.
Or you may pray and say, God, what am I supposed to do?
And you feel like God's telling you what to do and you check it against scripture and you pray back and make sure it's God.
And you go and do that right there.
Right.
But the point is this, they may be misinterpreting signs.
And it's our job to step in there and say, look, first of all, you don't have to interpret signs at all.
You could literally be done with signs because according to what the Bible says, you can talk to God and God will tell you what you are supposed to do.
And sometimes it's that still small voice.
You have to listen closely.
Sometimes it's that urging emotionally and you have to feel it and know that it's from God.
Test it versus the spirits.
Know that it's from God.
Sometimes it's from the scripture or whatever.
But the bottom line is we have a God who leads us personally and individually.
And this introducing Jesus is about them considering us considering the case of us witnessing to them.
It's about them considering that they haven't known the one they say they know.
Identifying Jesus's mercies, discerning blessings and misunderstandings and considering that he may be showing the way already.
They're misinterpreting the signs, for example.
Jesus is calling them to himself and they take those signs to mean it's direction from God when in reality the direction is for them to repent and turn to the Lord.
The key understanding here is that when you start to do this with somebody, there will be a burning in their heart.
They will recognize you might have one now.
You might be going, I get this.
I think God is saying something to me.
There's a something here I have to adjust to.
And of course, you know, examples in the scripture of this is Emmaus, right?
Crispus, the road to Emmaus, the Bereans.
They studied the scripture to check and see, yeah, is this right?
What they're saying is right and more.
A bad example might be Herod where he says, boy, Paul, you'd almost convince me to be a Christian.
Right?
And people do get to the point where it burns with them and they think I've got to repent.
I've got to turn to the Lord.
I've got to follow this real Jesus, the one that I'm really supposed to be following.
Stop playing games and really know the person that I think I know or thought I knew.
But they won't do it.
They won't pull the trigger on it because they're too invested in whatever, because they're too connected in whatever,
because they know it's who you know and who they know is somebody else or something else, a pastime.
Right?
Whatever.
And they start thinking, no, I can't give up my connection to those things and make Jesus my only connection because I already know him enough.
To be saved, to be on the way to heaven.
I don't need to sacrifice and so on.
Then there's a fourth one.
Push button.
Is that the last one?
Yes.
Okay. Yes. I see it.
All right.
So it's introducing Jesus.
He knows the I and the J are capitalized and nothing else.
All right.
So this, I think, is the core of what they were called to as witnesses.
They were going to go and present a unique alternative way.
Many other ways had been tried and fallen short.
Right?
Lots of opportunities to be saved.
Lots of opportunities to make life better.
Groups you can get involved with.
Counseling that you can have.
Medical solutions.
Pills you can take.
Better jobs.
Better promotion.
Better training.
All these things.
Say the right thing.
Control your temper.
Count to ten first.
Right?
All of these solutions are ways to become a better person.
To make your life better.
To solve the problems.
But Jesus is a unique alternative way.
This involves reason that leads to a saving faith.
You interpret what they're going through.
You interpret it all, if you will.
You become an interpreter for them and say,
look, what this is all about is like it says in Acts 17.
It's all about bringing you to Jesus.
It's all about Him being the way.
And helping process decisions.
What do I do?
I'm stricken.
I don't know.
I can't make a decision here.
They say, well, if you were following Jesus,
Jesus would help you make a decision.
And if you made the wrong decision,
you could trust that He's going to work everything out for your good
if you love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.
Helping them process decisions.
And it's about being okay and also being better than okay.
Because our salvation is not about being okay.
In fact, once you're saved, you'll never be just okay again.
Jesus came and lived and died that we might have an abundant life.
You're never going to be just okay again.
At the moment of your death, you'll be transitioning to be greater
than anybody who's ever been alive.
And that's what Jesus died for.
That's what Jesus rose for.
So Jesus Himself spoke this.
But you know what's funny?
I couldn't think of a single New Testament example like this.
Most of what you see in the New Testament is two types of people.
They fall either under the original introducing Jesus category
where they were fleeing to safety knowing something wasn't right
or in the introducing Jesus category where they were claiming God
but they really didn't see the solution that God had proposed.
Most of them are in those two categories.
So this introducing Jesus as a concept, as a way,
as a person who will lead and guide and stay with you forever,
what do you notice about that?
Well, that's the kind of generic overall witnessing
that we're supposed to do that nobody's doing.
Why don't we introduce to everybody this Jesus that we know?
Not because He's just somebody better to know.
Not challenging, you say you follow Jesus but I say you don't.
And let's talk about the real Jesus and trying to get them to move to that.
That's pretty caustic.
That's a rough kind of witnessing.
That's even kind of maybe a little judgmental.
We don't like to go to their deathbed and say,
have you become a follower of Jesus?
Because if you don't, you're going to hell in about 15 minutes.
That's a rough kind of witnessing.
That's the harsh kind.
And we really struggle with, and I'll get into this in the conclusion,
which we're almost to, but we really struggle with when we see people in suffering
bringing Jesus as a solution to their suffering
because we see them in their suffering, we bring Jesus,
and they don't immediately get healed.
And so we question whether or not that makes any sense.
Does it make any sense that now they choose Jesus as Lord
and the paralytic is not healed and the blind can't see
and the dead man doesn't come back to life?
And we struggle with that concept.
And so when people are really stuck there, we don't want to propose them.
But we darn well ought to be able to propose Jesus as an alternative
to all the things that people are wrapped up in.
We ought to be able to say that because Jesus is a better alternative for us
and so we ought to know that he's better for them as well.
The truth is that in some sense we are all the same.
We all face the same danger.
Whether you come from any of these four categories
or if there are other categories that I have named,
then we all face the same danger.
This danger is that we will choose not to be born again
due to the inherent resistance of our previous state.
We'll say, I don't want to be born again because I already know Jesus.
Or enough.
Or I don't want to be born again because I have a way of living.
I don't want to be born again because here is somebody over here that I know
and they're doing enough for me.
This makes me feel good enough.
This makes me feel strong enough.
I'm okay. I don't need anyone different.
And so on.
The danger is that we may not.
So then as we come to the conclusion, we're going to have two texts
that I want you to see and then we're through.
The first one, 2 Peter is the first one.
Praise the Lord.
2 Peter is chapter 1, beginning in verse 1.
Simon Peter, a bondservant apostle of Jesus Christ,
to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours
by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
So let's be clear about the audience to whom Peter was writing.
Peter was writing to people who got saved the same way he got saved.
Not people who got saved out of the same situation he got saved out of.
Not people who were specifically at their last end of their rope
and they just had not hung on until Jesus came.
Or people who didn't know how they were going to be okay
unless they knew the right person.
Or people who already thought they knew Jesus
and he was appealing them to come to know Jesus.
No, he was writing to people with a faith the same kind as ours
by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
How did you get saved?
You get saved by your own righteousness, you get saved by your own plan,
by somebody else's plan, by the church's plan.
If you got saved by any of those methods you got a problem.
We get saved by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.
That's how people get saved.
That's how people get born again.
He writes in verse 2, grace and peace be multiplied to you
in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness
through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.
That's what happened the moment you got saved.
He's not just a better way.
He's not another God of choices.
So we choose Jesus over whatever in the world is good,
whatever is promoted on TV, whatever fits in your pocket,
whatever you can play or do,
whatever you can enjoy or produce a serotonin in your brain.
It's not Jesus chosen over those things.
Rather, he gave us everything pertaining to life and godliness
through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.
He called us, he chose us.
Verse 4, for by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises
in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
See, there was a line drawn in the sand.
Jesus said, I want you to come over here with me.
I want you to be with me, be born again.
Right? Do that.
And we said yes, and we stepped across the line.
And now there is no going back.
There is no mix of the two worlds.
We don't look at where we came from and say, this is a problem with us, right?
I used to be such a liar.
Before I got saved, I was a liar.
I was trained to be a liar.
I was experienced by friends where I was a good liar.
Really good, I could have been a con man,
except I was so inhibited I couldn't handle people thinking about me.
I couldn't handle the wondering about it, the question, right?
So I look back now and I say, well, I used to be such a liar,
and I was saved from that, and I am comforted by the fact that that's who I was,
and now I'm living in an abundance of caution to never be that person again,
but also in the grace of God I shall never be that person again.
But he's saying, having escaped that corruption that was in us,
instead that we might be partakers of the divine nature.
You have been created over in the image of God,
and born again into the image of God,
and indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God.
You are a completely different person than before you were saved.
Can you read it one more time?
Probably not.
Okay.
So verse 5 then says,
Now for this very reason, it is recorded however,
for this very reason also applying all diligence in your faith,
supply moral excellence.
So now look at it, this is what he says,
now that this is so because this has happened,
because you are partakers of the divine nature,
because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in you,
now created over into his image,
now that that is true, do this, apply all diligence,
get your butt to work, do it, study, discipline yourself, push yourself.
Will it change whether you're saved or not? No.
But because you are saved, because you have the imputed righteousness of Christ,
now apply all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence.
Why?
We're not trying to be good or do the right thing,
or stop lying or stealing or cheating,
because that's what we think Christians do.
No, we're doing that because you're running on the fuel of divine power.
You're running on the fuel of divine inhabitation.
And if you want to run on Holy Spirit power,
if you want to run on God's power,
if you want a life that is built on the foundation that God laid,
then you supply moral excellence.
Do the right thing.
Also, in your moral excellence, knowledge.
Learn the right thing.
And in your knowledge, self-control.
Restrict yourself from practicing things that do not honor the Lord
and do not honor He who rides in you.
And in your self-control, perseverance.
That means overcome the difficulties of this life.
And it goes like this.
This is what we do.
I'm just going to be quite frank and honest with you for a second here
about my personal experience, and I think you'll resonate with it.
And that is this.
We practice self-control.
We say, I'm never going to do that again.
And then a day comes that does not go the way we want it to.
And we think, well, I could do that.
I could do that because it will make me feel better.
It will sustain me.
It will be the solution that I need.
Sometimes we don't even think about it,
and we're in the midst of a fit or in the midst of a calling off work with a lie
or watching something we shouldn't watch
or hurting somebody verbally that we shouldn't hurt.
And there really isn't anybody that you should hurt verbally at all.
And we're not persevering.
Rather, we're stepping back.
We're not even self-controlling anymore
because we think we have another solution.
He says, and in your knowledge, self-control,
and in your self-control, perseverance,
and in your perseverance, godliness.
Now, I understand you are created into the image,
recreated into the image of God,
and now provide moral excellence and your moral excellence knowledge
and your knowledge, self-control, and your self-control, perseverance,
and in your perseverance, godliness.
And then in your godliness, brotherly kindness,
and in your brotherly kindness, love.
These are the steps that we take after we've been recreated over into the divine image,
after we've been recreated over into this life, into this world.
We're busy looking at what we got saved out of,
and we're forgetting what we were saved into, what we've become.
We've become something new.
And when somebody does something wrong now,
when you do something wrong in practicing accountability,
our accountability is like, you know, this is not you.
I taught this lesson in preschool.
Ty probably remembers it because he was there, maybe, I don't know.
And we drew these men on this big plastic tablecloth,
and we wrote salty on there.
And we talked about being the salt of the earth.
And if salt loses its saltiness, what good is it?
And what Jesus was saying is, if you were created over into the divine image,
and you don't act like the divine, you don't act the way you're supposed to act,
you don't do the things that you're supposed to do, that's a contradiction.
Now you've got salt that's unsalty. What do you do?
Well, who made salt salty in the first place? God did.
So there's only one thing you can do.
You go back to the one who recreated you, you repent, turn back to God,
and you get made salty again. It's all you can do.
And if you're supposed to be traveling the divine image
because you are a recreated follower of the Lord,
then you practice these things, if you will, ultimately in love,
and when you fail to do so, God doesn't recognize you.
God looks at you and says, that's Ron Mack.
But that ain't Ron Mack. It's like he's divided today.
Ron Mack created over in the name of the Lord, created over in my image,
created over with my Holy Spirit riding him, is doing that.
My Holy Spirit doesn't do that.
So then Ron Mack needs to come back to God and say,
okay, God, what does Ron Mack do as a recreated divine being, essentially?
What do I do now?
And God will tell us, God will show us, God will sustain us,
God will provide for us internally, and we will do it.
He goes on to say in verse 8,
for if these qualities are yours and are increasing,
check that out, that's super important.
If these qualities are yours and are increasing.
So wherever you're at, it's like you could have a character sheet
or a spreadsheet to list, I'm good at this.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm doing like 2.
I'm good at this. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm doing like 7.
This, 2, 3, 5.
You have a bar graph in front of you, right?
And as long as you have some of each one of those things,
and those numbers are increasing, fractionally possibly, right?
So you can go from 2, and in a year you go to 2.1.
It's not increasing a lot, but it's increasing.
A decimal a day, 1, 365th of a tenth of a point.
Just got a little bit more self-discipline this year.
Just got a little bit more moral behavior this year.
I just learned a little bit more about what God wants me to be,
about the truth of Scripture, about God, knowledge, again, just a little bit.
He says, if you have these qualities and they are increasing,
they render you neither useless nor unfruitful
in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But you could flip that around, because that's an if-then statement.
Meaning, if you do not have these characteristics,
or if they are not increasing,
their lack, or the lack of increase, will render you useless
and or unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted,
having forgotten his purification from his former sins.
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you.
So if you realize that you're lacking in this area, repent, turn to God,
and do the necessary work to be all the more certain that he has called you and has chosen you.
For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
will be abundantly supplied to you.
So you're saved. This is how you be saved, how you get saved, and how you finish saved.
Right there. There it is.
So you're translated into the kingdom of God. You're born again, made new.
This is how you stay new, grow as new, and finish new.
That's what Peter says. And who did he write it to?
He wrote it to those who received a faith of the same kind as ours
by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Meaning, it doesn't matter which one of these categories people come from,
they can still act this way, be this way now in Christ.
Right? It doesn't matter. I had it in the youth group years ago.
We had a number of conversations about when I was a youth director
about how some of the people in our youth group didn't really have a fantastic testimony.
They weren't saved as drug addicts.
So there's drug addicts, wah, I'm finally free from heroin.
Saved and never looked back.
Or they weren't criminals in jail and got saved and got out
and finally free from criminal activity or anything like that.
They were mostly raised in Christian households, introduced to Jesus at a very young age,
baptized by the time they were 10, living for the Lord.
Now some of them went on to develop a fairly extreme Christian testimony.
Michael, for example. Michael went in the military,
went through some pretty horrific things, has paid a dear price for that
for many years now, right? Am I correct?
And now, by his own profession, would say, Jesus first in everything.
Right? That being said, that's a pretty crazy testimony that you may not have.
You didn't go through that.
But that does not make you better or worse than a person who did.
If he received Jesus Christ,
if he received it as a faith of the same kind as ours,
he believed in Jesus, trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior,
then by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ,
he received translation into the Kingdom of God, he was born again,
in dwell with the Holy Spirit, and yes, it ought to be Jesus first in everything.
It doesn't matter where you came from, it matters whom you have trusted in,
who is your boss, who is making intercession for you, and that's it.
One last text, 2 Timothy chapter 1.
2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 6 to 14.
2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 6 says this,
And for this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God,
which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.
If you do anything out of a spirit that is not power, love, and discipline,
then you are doing that thing out of some kind of fuel other than the Holy Spirit of God.
Because the Holy Spirit is a spirit of power and love and discipline,
perhaps among other things.
But the bottom line is, if you don't do it in power and love and discipline,
you cannot blame God for it.
Because God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.
Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me his prisoner,
but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God,
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.
We'll stop there for one second. That was a long sentence. Paul is known for his long sentences.
Bottom line is he's saying, even though I'm suffering in prison right now,
which he was probably in a house chained to a soldier, but he was arrested.
Even though I'm suffering under arrest, and he's not able to work, he's not able to make money,
he's struggling in every way except for spiritually perhaps,
he was saying, don't be ashamed of that. Don't be ashamed of my suffering.
Rather, be willing to join me in suffering as God deems it's necessary.
We were called with a holy calling, called to be new, called to be Christ-like,
called to be in the kingdom of God, and not according to our works,
which means it doesn't matter what we were doing. This is the problem.
We think we were called according to our works, even though we say we weren't.
But we go, well, I was a sinner. I needed a savior. I got a savior. I was called out of my sin.
You were not called out of your sin. The church is the called out assembly of God.
That's a fact, right? But we're the called out of the darkness to be something, to be light, right?
If you go into a dark room, switch on a light switch, the darkness basically goes away
because the light has come. Your darkness that you once were is gone.
That's supposed to be gone. Others don't understand that.
They're living half dark, half light, or all dark. They need the light.
We called them out of the darkness into the light, at which point in time, 2 Corinthians 5,
all old things have passed away. Stop thinking about what you got saved from
and start thinking about who you're living for. Start thinking about who saved you,
who now resides in you, and the kind of man or woman that you're supposed to be.
That's what we're called to, not called to think about, well, I'm so much better than I used to be.
C.S. Lewis once said, you can't judge whether a man is saved or not,
even by comparing him to who he is now with who he was before he got saved.
Biblically, you're not supposed to do that. He said, what you'd have to do is compare him
who he is now with who he would be now if he never got saved.
And that's a person you cannot see. Maybe I would have quit lying at 30, 35, 40.
Maybe I would have eventually realized that that's not a good way to treat people,
and it never pays anyway because you always get caught and you've got to lie some more,
and all those kinds of problems develop and whatever.
Like I always saw on TV that that's the way it was, you know, and stuff.
Maybe I would have eventually stopped. But that wouldn't have made me saved.
And I'm not saved because I was convicted of my sin and I decided to leave it behind,
and I changed and became a different person. I'm saved because I trusted in Jesus Christ.
I was called with a holy calling, not according to my works, but according to His own purpose and grace,
which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing
of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel,
for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.
For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed.
In other words, He was suffering being in jail or imprisoned, right?
He was going through all the terrible things He was going through, but I am not ashamed.
For I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.
So I've got people right now that I'm talking to, ministering to, praying for, that won't even talk to me at all,
that are going through suffering and difficulty, and they're blaming God.
They're mad at God for the suffering and difficulty they're going through.
They won't worship. They won't go to church. They won't serve. They won't give.
They won't do the things that God has called them to because their life is not quite right,
because they're not happy, because they're not content, because they can't figure out why things are the way they are.
Paul says, I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed.
I know who God is, basically what he's saying. God has saved me.
And I'm convinced that He's able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.
In verse 13 then he says, retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
So we join God in that work of guarding the treasure that has been entrusted to us.
We started talking about introducing Jesus. We started talking about a power that requires, that desires to witness.
The Holy Spirit desires to witness about Jesus because that's how people get translated into the Kingdom of God.
That's how people leave behind some other version of God. That's how people overcome sin and death.
That's how people live for eternity because it's all good.
So we're supposed to go and witness and even suffer and die if necessary to deliver that message because it's all good.
But then we suffer a little bit. We're crying out to God, God I can't understand why you're not fixing this problem.
I can't understand why you can leave me here and let me be like that.
Why life is not fixed. Why the world is the way we're vexed by the unrighteousness of the world. We're upset.
We want it all fixed. And God's only message is that it will all be fixed.
It will all be renewed. It will all be perfect in time.
But I am patient now with you that all men might come to repentance.
So let me say to you, if only just today you're realizing that you too have sin and need a Savior, flee to the safety of Jesus.
Flee to the safety of Jesus. And He will stand at the right hand of the throne of God and make intercession for you until He comes again and ends this earth as we know it.
Or until you die and go into His presence.
If you've never actually embraced the idea that there is a rain of sin in your life and you need somebody to break it, flee to the safety of Jesus.
And that is a message you can take everywhere in the world and use all day long every day.
If on the other hand you would say, I recognize it's who you know in this life.
Who you know and what they can do. I've got a good plumber on speed dial. I've got a good furnace guy. I've got a good parking lot guy. I've got a good lawyer.
It's who you know. You don't call the parking lot guy to go to court with you when you're being sued.
It's who you know and what they can do. Then understand that Jesus is the one. He is the one that God made, the one we need to know.
Life is all about coming to know Jesus and get connected to Jesus.
Stop looking for your wisdom, your knowledge, your training, your experience, your solution somewhere else and look first in Jesus.
And let Jesus direct you if you should need to get it somewhere else.
If it's possible that you think, well I know Jesus but now you're wondering as we're talking today because Jesus never really spoke to me.
Or I don't read the Bible and I don't really experience the presence of God or whatever.
I've been interpreting science and I think I should be going this way but I'm thinking maybe now I missed something along the way.
Then you need to repent and turn to Jesus and know Jesus.
And stop interpreting science for your direction and let Jesus, if anyone's going to interpret the science, let Jesus interpret the science.
But Jesus is better than that. He'll just tell you. He'll show you.
There ought to be a burning in your heart, a recognition that you need to be with Jesus.
And the others need to be with Jesus and we ought to be looking at people when we walk in a restaurant, order fast food, we should be thinking about,
I wonder if that person needs to know Jesus.
The answer is yes. If they don't already know Jesus, they need to know him.
And they may not.
But we're talking about finding people who are fertile fields and you're never going to find them unless you go looking with an eye,
knowing that they need to be introduced to Jesus.
And then lastly, and maybe most importantly because it comes straight from the words of Jesus, we're talking about recognizing that Jesus is the way.
And everybody could back off self-discipline on a bad day.
Everybody could choose to do the wrong thing because in that moment it seems to make more sense.
But when you're walking with Jesus, he is the way and you walk with him all day long.
And you do something and you go, oh wait, that really wasn't walking with Jesus.
Jesus never would have done that. And you immediately repent and turn back to God.
And that, as Peter said, leads to practicing discipline.
Ultimately, it leads to love.
I'm asking you today to consider that as we are sent out to be witnesses to the world by the Holy Spirit power that's taken our residence,
if we're going to encounter people in all different locations, I'll share with you two quick illustrations and we'll be through.
First one is from high school. Seems like forever ago now, but this memory is very vivid and real.
I thought from hot moment I was going to be a track star.
I was in high school, I was a freshman and I went out for track.
And we got on the track and we did this thing called Indian runs. I didn't know what an Indian run had to be explained to me.
So there was eight of us in a row. We're all running single file around the track on the inside lane.
And when you fell to the back of the track, you had just a few seconds.
You're supposed to be able to count to five if you really wanted to.
To break out into the right wider lane and run around all seven of the other guys and cut back to the front.
To do that, you had to run faster than everybody else.
And if you want to do it at any reasonable amount of time, you had to run a lot faster than everybody else.
Otherwise, you'd be stuck in the outside lane.
And if you were on a turn stuck in the outside lane, that's a longer run.
You're running a lot further. So by the time you run a quarter mile, you're running a lot further. We were running a half mile.
So thinking to myself two things. First of all, I'm thinking I don't ever want to be in the back, but I know I'm going to be in the back.
And eventually I'm going to have to run around everybody.
Secondly, I'm thinking when I have to run around everybody, I sure hope it's not during a turn.
So I don't have to be out in the wider lane and run the longer distance. Right.
So we go through the first lane and I'm getting one at a time pass. I was probably like third.
And guy passes me blows up to the front. Everything's fine. He's huffing and puffing on the way by, but he's all good.
Next person goes by and we get to the second turn. Sure enough, going to the second turn. It's my turn. I'm in the back.
And I'm thinking to myself, I got to run around seven guys. We're keeping a pretty good pace. Right.
And I run around seven guys fast as I can get ducked into the front.
And I remember the coach saying as you run around them, make it look like you're not laboring because the whole point of the Indian run is so when you pass somebody in a race, they'll think he's got it.
I'm not going to try. He's so much faster than me. He's not even laboring. Right.
And you'll and you'll defeat them. You'll make them think they're defeated.
And so I said, OK, here I go. I did a couple of good breaths and I bust out into the right lane and I'm trucking and I'm flying faster than everybody.
And I'm looking like I'm not laboring. And and the fastest guy on the track team was by that time he was like two in front of me because he started out running in the front.
And as I blew by him, I could hear he was kind of labor and running, you know, and I got to the front of the line and I dropped in and I'm trying to keep the same pace everybody's keeping.
So it wouldn't look like I was going to get up there and slow everybody down. And as I dropped into the front of line, I was pretty sure I was the next up and coming track star.
I had blown by the whole group. I was not breathing heavy any more than I was before. It was all good.
And in the front and they all looked like they were really panting heavy.
And I get back in and I call my breathing down and I'm running in the front. I think I'm going to be the next track star. Right.
And the next guy broke out from me on the line. He passed me. But he was labor and like he was like breathing pretty heavy as he went by.
I'm going to see I'm going to be the next track star. We go to the next curve and we're on the third curve at that point in time.
And the guy who was the track star breaks out from the back of the pack and he blows by the seven of us like we're all standing still.
He's not breathing heavy and he cuts back in. But when he cuts back in, he doesn't slow back down.
So now he's two guys in front of me, but he's 20 feet out and the guy in front of me starts to run to keep up with him. Right.
And now I'm trying to run to keep up with him. And now he's 30 feet out. We're all trying to run really hard.
We hit the curve and the guy in the back, he's trying to pass and we hit the next curve.
It's coming around to the finish line on the first lap and he couldn't get past.
He's stuck out there the whole time. He's running as fast as he can trying to keep up. And the guy that's in the front is like 50 yards ahead.
We know I never had to pass the pack again because the guy in the front was 50 yards. He left us.
There's that moment that I realized that it wasn't me. It was him. He was going to be the track star.
I thought I was so good because I could pass. Sometimes you look at your situation, you're serving God and you go like, I'm doing so good.
Look at that person over there. They're really struggling, really suffering. They're really going through some difficulty.
And you start thinking how awesome you are, how well off you are. And think I'm a rock star for Jesus.
Nobody's a rock star for Jesus. I hate to burst your bubble. Nobody. Not the pastor, not the deacon, not the teachers.
Nobody's a rock star for Jesus. Everybody's in the same place. If you receive Jesus the same way, then you're in the same place.
You say, well, he does more devotionals than I do. He reads his Bible more than I do. He preaches or teaches more than I do.
He witnesses more than I do. Everybody's in the same place.
If you have those characteristics and you're growing in those characteristics, you will never be useless to Jesus.
Everybody's in the same place. You say, well, he was broke and poor and losing everything and then he came to Christ and it all turned around for him.
And now he's solid. He went through a horrible relationship situation and it all turned around for him.
Now he's such a great witness. He's a rock star for Jesus and I'm not. Nobody's a rock star for Jesus.
Nobody's a rock star for Jesus. Jesus is the rock star. He's the one that's at work in us.
You just get out of bed in the morning and turn your life over to Jesus and practice the things that you know and continue to improve.
A little bit, little bit, little bit. And you can improve a tenth on that scale on each one of those things a year and be perfectly useful for Jesus.
And somebody else improves by five points this year. In every one of those categories, you're like, oh, they're a rock star for Jesus and I'm not.
And next year, it's gone. It's over. They're not living for Jesus at all.
They were such a good rock star for Jesus and now they don't need the rock star anymore.
You live for Jesus. You make the daily choices in your life that make you more like Jesus.
Discipline yourself. Work at it. Put Jesus first in everything. Learn more.
Don't miss the opportunity to study the Bible. Don't miss the opportunity to sit on a sermon. Don't miss the opportunity to learn and grow.
There's more opportunity to learn and grow and study and take in Bible studies and stuff like that in our church than probably any church anywhere.
You've got Right Now Media, Podcast, LifeStation. You can go back and listen to sermons from four years ago on the podcast.
Some of them all the way back to 2014. That's 10 years ago.
There's more opportunities and we are a reaching new heights in Jesus' church. But no one person here is any better off than anybody.
If we all came by the way Jesus would have us come, which is faith in Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior,
then we all can have those characteristics and be growing in those characteristics and we never fail to be useful to the God of Heaven for the task that He has selected us for.
But boy, it's so hard. I had a man tell me this week that I'm out of touch with what it means to be a Christian.
Because I have not suffered like you suffered. And I said, I've not suffered like you suffered.
You're right. No one has. You alone. You're the only person who has been through what you've been through.
And hear me now. Saved in Jesus? Jesus kind of doesn't care what you've been through.
He really cares about who you are walking in Christ. So walk in Christ.
Don't compare yourself to others. Don't question God as to why some one person suffers and another person doesn't.
It's in the purview of the Lord. We have people in this room.
If we ranked ourselves, we'd get down to there's one person who has suffered more than anybody else in this room.
I don't know who it is. I don't know that we actually could figure it out.
But that means it's almost certainly not you.
Somebody has suffered more than you. Unless you're the one.
And if you think it's possible that you are the one, then you have the same problem that what I'm talking about.
Put your eyes on Jesus. Follow Jesus daily. Introduce everyone to Jesus that you possibly can.
Because He's the way, the truth, and the life.