Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast.
How do we know where to find answers to the toughest questions in life?
While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search and how do we discover
this truth?
Today, in this teaching podcast, John Metter, lead pastor of Cross City Church, takes a
specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth for the life we're searching for.
Thank you so much.
I'll tell you, nobody is happier than I am today to be back in the pulpit.
You just never envision that you're going to lose your voice for 12 weeks.
It just never occurred to me.
I mean, I talk all the time.
I can't imagine and couldn't imagine losing it for 12 weeks, but I want to say a word
of appreciation to each one of you.
I just can't tell you how much I appreciate your prayers, your cards.
I've received so many cards, I can't even count them.
And these are not just cards, but great messages in them.
You have just been so kind in your prayers.
All kinds of gift cards, food gift cards.
I told Kim the other day, we don't know how to cook anymore because we have so many food
gift cards at restaurants.
We don't mind that.
I mean, we could get used to that, right?
It's just been a great thing.
I remember saying something a few years ago.
We were walking with a family through some real health difficulties and they asked for
James 5 prayer, which is when we bring our staff and our leaders around them in prayer,
anoint them with oil and read James 5 together and then just go to the Lord and ask for healing.
And I remember saying to our staff about a week or two later, I'm so glad I'm a part
of a church that believes in prayer.
Our leaders believe in prayer.
Our people believe in prayer.
And I actually made this statement.
I said, if I'm ever sick, I want to be in a church like this for people to pray for
me.
And lo and behold, that was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For those of you that don't know, I discovered cancer of a thyroid, had my thyroid and lymph
nodes removed.
Today, I'm happy to tell you that 12 weeks later, my body scan on Monday told me that
I was cancer free and now have a voice again.
So I'm very thankful.
Thankful to the Lord.
And for 12 weeks, we've had this fulfilled with some great preaching and teaching.
And there's some of those guys are in the room.
Richard's here.
Others are here.
They did a phenomenal job.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Russell, somewhere at the back here.
But I'm more than happy to step back up today.
I'm excited about that.
If you have your Bibles, please take them in turn to Matthew 28 today.
Now, if you've been with us, you know that we've been in the Rooted series and I'm going
to continue in that today.
I have a message that I want to share with you a few weeks from now.
And that message has to do with just what I've learned in the last 12 weeks about myself,
about God, about the church of Jesus, about prayer, so much to share.
But I'm going to hold off until we get through the Rooted series because the Rooted series
is so incredibly important.
This is a series of subjects that help us pass on truth to the next generation.
And we're passing on truth to the next generation sometimes when that next generation doesn't
have biblical literacy.
They may not know where to find a certain book in the Bible.
And so we need to start at the beginning.
We started with who is God?
We can't get more basic than that.
In fact, Richard Taylor kicked us off with a message called Who is God?
Remember him saying, this is a big question.
How can you answer it in 30 minutes?
And he did a great job of doing that.
And we looked at things like how does God speak to us?
Where is God in the midst of suffering?
How can I make the most out of my life?
Is there an enemy?
How does God view bunny, which we're going to look at next week?
Why is the church important a couple of weeks from now?
And today I want to visit with you about why and how do I tell others?
You know, the Lord left us on earth for a reason.
It's not just to enjoy salvation, even though we can enjoy it.
It's also to help other people know what it means to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
I want you to zoom in with me for a few moments on this text and this question, why and how
should I tell others?
Matthew 28.
Let's stand together.
I'm going to read a few verses that you're very familiar with.
Beginning in verse 18.
And it may please you, it may get you excited to know that my voice is back, but it's not
back for an hour, right?
It's back for 30 minutes, 35 minutes, something like that.
So we're going to have to be as brief as we possibly can.
And you don't mind that.
I mean, I didn't hear any amen, but that's okay.
You don't have to say it then.
There's one thing I learned from Richard Taylor is that it's a great line.
It's not the only thing I've learned from him, but it's a great line.
An amen goes right there.
That's Richard's line.
But an amen didn't go right there where I just said that.
So I'll let you know when we have time for one.
Verse 18, Matthew 28.
Jesus is talking to the disciples and he's giving them what we know as a great commission.
This is your marching order, he says to the church until the end of the age.
This is what I want you to be doing, occupied with.
This is what I want the church to be about.
And we pick it up in verse 18, Matthew says, and Jesus came up and spoke to them saying,
and now these are the words of Jesus here.
All authority has been given me in heaven and on earth.
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
father and the son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you and
lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Now an amen goes right there.
Amen.
Thank you, Richard.
Father, in Jesus' name, I pray that you will bless this text in our lives as we follow
it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Please be seated.
You know, there are a lot of high points to the Christian life.
I mean, one of those high points of the Christian life is when you come to Christ, right?
I mean, that's when you all of a sudden realize that you can know the living God.
And we'll talk about that more in just a few moments.
There is a point at which every person reaches a point of decision where they realize who
Jesus Christ is and invite him to be the Lord and Savior of their lives, and their lives
are changed, obviously, outwardly and inwardly.
What's a high point?
There are high points in the Christian life where you are praying about something and
God answers your prayer, or you're opening the Bible and all of a sudden it seems like
the Holy Spirit so illuminates the text or actually emboldens the passage of Scripture
so you can't avoid it.
God is speaking to you at that moment.
Another high point of the Christian life is when you have the opportunity to tell somebody
else about what it means to have a relationship with Jesus Christ and you plant an incredible
life-transforming seed in their heart.
That's a high point.
Whether they actually come to Christ at that moment or whether they do it down the road,
it really matters little.
The fact is God has used you to help someone else know who Jesus Christ is.
And that's the kind of lifestyle that we are to have, a lifestyle where we're doing that
and having some of those high points that the Great Commission points to.
Where to go?
And as we go, we're to make disciples by baptizing and teaching the things that I'm talking about
here.
Now I think you know that from the sin's inception, from the beginning that sin took place in
the Garden of Eden, our world has been decaying, rotting, and it's been darkened and getting
darker it seems like sometimes.
That's been true ever since sin entered into the heart of Adam and Eve.
And Jesus' prescription for this decay and this darkness is the gospel.
It's the light.
It's the salt.
It preserves, it transforms, it illuminates that which is dark.
Maybe you remember Jesus talking in Matthew chapter 5 when he was interacting with the
disciples and they used these two great word pictures.
He says, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can
it be made salty again?
It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled and to fit by men.
And then he used another picture.
He said, you're the light of the world, a city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
And he left no question in those disciples' minds.
Salt and light is what we're supposed to be about.
And that's what changes culture.
That's what changes the world.
And that's what changes individual lives.
Now, I've learned that if you don't put salt actually onto the food that you're eating,
it doesn't really preserve.
It doesn't really make it taste very well.
So we have to be immersed into that, into that culture that we're in.
And we have to interact with people around us for our saltiness to rub off on them, for
our light to illuminate the dark places in their lives.
And so that means that we are going, and as we go, we make disciples by being salt and
light.
And it's an incredibly important command that we have.
Every disciple, that is a note that you read about in the scripture, did that in their
lives and their living after they came to Jesus Christ.
Peter did that.
You see Peter bowled for Christ in the book of Acts.
You see him interacting with people with salt and with light.
You see the apostle Paul as he did the same thing, reasoning with men at Mars Hill, helping
them understand what it meant to know the light of the living God instead of the human
light that did not have the same kind of wisdom.
Philip was placed wherever the spirit wanted him to be, even in a desert, to help someone
know that Jesus Christ offers salvation.
But I want you to know today that just as importantly as Peter was and Paul was and
Philip was to the New Testament, you are placed in a place where you can be salt and light
as well.
It's not Peter, Paul, Philip, and the rest of us.
It's all of us who have the opportunity to do that.
So today I want to follow a very simple outline as we walk through Matthew chapter 28 verses
18 through 20, answering the question why and how should I tell others.
And let me just give you two main points and a lot of sub points, okay?
So if you're taking notes today, here's the first idea that I want you to grasp, the first
requirement for us to be able to pass truth on to others.
So first is know the story of the gospel.
You've got to know it before you can share it.
You can't give away what you don't have and what you don't understand.
Now when you open up with Matthew chapter 28 verse 19 and 20, the opening words are
go therefore and make disciples of all the nation, but I want you to go even behind that
to the context of who Jesus is speaking to there.
Jesus is speaking to the disciples that have already learned what the message of the gospel
is.
He's telling them everything I shared with you for the last three years, you're going
to share with others.
You know it well, so you can pass it on well, but first we must know the gospel well.
You need to know what it is, if you're a believer in Jesus, you need to know what it is that
Jesus did in order to give us a transformed life.
So here's a good question for you.
Is the gospel clear to you?
I'm going to drink heavily during this message by the way, so those pauses are going to happen
today, but I want you to know today that the clarity that the Bible gives us with the gospel
is something that you need to possess.
You don't need to just know a few things about the gospel, you need to know how it works.
Because if you have been transformed by the gospel, then all those things weren't worth
in your life, weren't they?
A lot of people can talk about Jesus' life and his living as the divine God man.
Some people can talk about Jesus' death on the cross, others can talk about the resurrection
of Jesus.
We can be able to articulate that, we celebrate that at Easter in such a big fashion, everybody
knows Jesus rose from the dead.
Sometimes people know a little bit about believing and what it means.
Sometimes people know something about repentance and how it's important.
But the reality is you need to have a clear view of the gospel in order to pass it on
to a generation that does not know it.
I promise you, you can't assume that people around you know what it means to have a relationship
with Christ and they can't know how it's even possible that they can have forgiveness
of sin.
But you can have that because you've experienced it and because you have this book called The
Scriptures to Help Us.
A few years ago I wanted to find the best single text of scripture that contained all
the components of the gospel.
And as I was reading one day through Ephesians chapter 2, I found that text and I have been
anchored on it ever since then.
If you have your Bibles, would you open them up to Ephesians 2 for a moment?
Because I'm going to take just a few moments to spell out very clearly and thoroughly what
the gospel is because you need to know what it is.
You have to know it clearly before you can pass it on.
Now I have taken this text and I have highlighted different aspects of it because it's an unfolding
picture of the power of the gospel that Paul wrote to the church of Ephesus.
But I've also done something that you call building an acrostic.
I've used the words of the scripture to spell out the word gospel, G-O-S-P-E-L.
And you can find it where it is in the verse as you walk through this with me over these
next very few moments.
So if you're opening up in Ephesians 2, you've got your finger on 1 through 10 somewhere
in there, let me spell out the gospel.
The first word is the word G or the letter G which stands for God's character, God's
character.
If you read the first few verses of Ephesians 2, you'll see that we are depraved and sinful
and we're the object of wrath.
We're the object of God's wrath and our sinfulness.
But in verse 4, we have this huge transition that says, but God.
And what follows that tells us the other side of God's character.
We've got God who is rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.
Aren't you glad God has great love for us?
And amen goes to the rich are sad.
I'm thankful that we serve a God who is holy and just, but I'm even more thankful personally
that he's merciful and loving.
But God's character is important.
Some people think God is only love and others think that God is only just.
And so they're either terrified of God or they give God no reverence and respect at
all.
But God is both holy and just as well as loving and merciful.
The O in the gospel is the offensive sin.
The scripture talks about Christ dying on the cross even when we were dead in our transgressions.
Now you need to know that the Bible says all have sinned and fall short of God's glory.
That's just one of those key verses that helps us know the offensive sin.
And this holy God is offended by my sinfulness and even by my sinful nature.
I was born in sin.
I was conceived in sin, the scripture says.
That doesn't mean that the act that conceived me was a sinful act.
It means that from the very beginning of my humanness, I carried the human nature of sinfulness.
That means that I was a rebel.
That means I wanted to do things my own way and my tendency was not to do things God's
way.
Well, the offensive sin means that I am separated from God until something changes that.
And if nothing changes that, I'm separated from God forever and ever and ever.
The offensive sin is big.
The S is the sufficiency of Christ.
By the way, I love the word sufficiency.
I love it because what it says is that Jesus Christ himself, the person of Jesus and the
work of Jesus, was absolutely 100% sufficient to pay for my sins and justify me as a sinful
person to become right with God.
I am so glad for the sufficiency of Jesus.
Now how do I know about that?
I know not only because of what the scripture says that he died for us, but because of Isaiah
chapter 53 that said God was pleased to bruise his son.
He was pleased to crush him and that by doing so he justified the many, the many referring
to those who have come to Christ and received eternal life.
So the S is sufficiency of Christ.
The sufficiency of Christ says there's nothing you can do by yourself or through your religion
to make you right with God.
You can't become such an upstanding citizen that God says, you know, I need that guy.
I need that lady in my heaven.
That's not how you get there.
You get there by the sufficiency of Jesus life and work on the cross, his death, burial,
resurrection as an adequate sacrifice for our sins.
So that's the sufficiency of Christ.
The P is the personal response.
Twice in Ephesians 2 it says for by grace you have been saved through faith.
Verse 5 and verse 8.
You know what that says?
It says that until you have made a personal decision, you do not have salvation.
We're not saved because we're in a Christian family.
We're not saved because we go to a Christian church.
We're saved when we come in a personal way and allow ourselves to be forgiven and put
our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
If that's never happened in your life, you have yet to be saved.
Salvation is still ahead of you.
The P is followed by the E, eternal urgency.
In Ephesians 2 we talk about this, the surpassing riches of his grace in the ages to come.
It's heaven or it's hell.
And the urgency is that if we do not make a decision for Christ before we die, then
we die in our sins and are forever separate from God.
You know what that means?
It means that you ought to be urgent to know where you stand with God.
It means you ought to be pretty concerned about the fact that you either have or do
not have salvation.
It also says that I need to be urgently looking for people that don't know him so I can help
them know Christ as Lord.
And then L is life transformation.
Salvation is not just about a ticket out of hell.
Salvation is about becoming like Christ.
And so that life transformation simply says that we're his workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good work, which he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in.
Once a person comes to faith in Christ, they have a whole other story about how God has
changed them from the inside out.
It's life transformation.
So G-O-S-P-E-L.
If you can spell the word gospel, you can share the gospel with somebody.
I want you to have that.
I want you to think about that.
I want you to mark that in the scripture because you'll be given an opportunity at some point
when you have a chance to share with somebody how they can know the gospel of Jesus.
So first of all, is it clear to you?
Now the second question is a little different.
Is the gospel personal to you?
Not just is it clear because you can know theologically.
You can hear what someone may have taught you about the gospel, but the second question
has to do is if it's personal or not in your life.
And by asking that question, I'm asking you, have you had that experience where you realized
that you needed Christ and you surrendered your life to Him, put your faith in Him, and
from that day on you've had a different life?
You know the Apostle Paul was one of the greatest theologians in the Bible.
In fact, most of the New Testament books we have, the epistles and the letters are penned
by him.
He was a man that was very religious until he came to faith in Jesus.
He was also a man that was very wicked until he came to faith with Jesus.
And three times in the book of Acts he tells his story.
And each time he tells his story, he tells it in front of very important people and often
a crowd and he always contains these three pieces of his life.
His before life, his after life, and his moment that he accepted Christ.
Decision point.
Before, after, the moment he accepted Christ.
Acts 26 is a great passage.
You might want to turn to it because I'll talk about it for just a moment.
This is where he's before King Agrippa.
And the first 11 verses of Paul talking to King Agrippa, he's telling about how religious
he was and how dark that turned.
And he began to persecute followers of Christ.
And those that were being led us away to death because of their faith, he signed off on that.
He allowed that to happen.
Some say he even personally was involved in that.
So here's a guy that was nothing short of a religious terrorist in his former life.
But before King Agrippa, he said, this is what I used to be.
And then I met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus.
And he said to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
And he said, who are you, Lord?
I am Jesus.
I'm Jesus that you're persecuting.
And in that moment, Saul came to faith in Christ.
And now we know him as Paul the apostle.
Now he shared that with King Agrippa.
And then at the end of that, he said, now here's what my life is now.
My life is now a calling to let everyone know of the grace that you can find in Jesus Christ.
And there's a great verse in chapter 26, verse 18, where King Agrippa said, Paul, if you
keep talking, you're even going to lead me to become a Christian as well.
Before after life transformation.
Do you remember my question?
Is the gospel personal to you?
Have you had a moment where you ended your before story, you started your after story,
and you did it because of the power of Jesus Christ?
What was that moment?
Where was it?
Is it obvious in your life that you're different because of that moment of trusting Christ?
Russell Gregory and I have talked recently about a time that he took a connection class
he was teaching through the gospel presentation.
And one day they had a testimony day.
That is the day where they worked on their personal testimony.
The goal was that everyone that was in that class would be able to learn to share the
gospel eventually, but to build their testimony.
And part of that exercise was talk about your before story, talk about your after story,
talk about how everything changed.
And of course, the answer to how everything changed is a relationship with Jesus Christ.
And Russell reported that two men came to him and said, I've been around here a long
time.
And I know a lot about Christianity, but I don't have a testimony.
I can't say that I have a before and an after story because I don't have a story that talks
about when my life changed in Jesus.
Of course, Russell wasted no time in helping those gentlemen come to know Jesus as Lord
and Savior.
Your amen goes right there, Russell.
Amen.
Sometimes it's when you build your testimony or attempt to that you realize, wait a minute,
I might be very religious.
I might be a part of a church.
I might know a lot, but have I ever really had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ
that changed my life?
Whereas everything after that moment can only be explained by his presence and his work
in my life.
You see, if you're going to change people around you by sharing the gospel, you've got
to know it clearly, but you also have to know it personal.
Is it personal to you?
If it hasn't been personal to you, you can make it personal to you today at the end of
this service.
I hope, I pray today that in this service there will be those that realize there's something
missing in my life and that they would realize we can help you put that something missing
who is Jesus in your life today.
So that's the first part of this message.
It's about knowing the gospel clearly and knowing it personally.
But I also want to move on and secondly see that this text tells us to share the story
of the gospel.
It's not just about knowing the gospel.
It's about actually sharing it.
In fact, in the verses we looked at, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
and teaching have to do with a going and a doing.
We are actually telling people and helping them know and teaching them exactly what it
means to know Christ as Lord and Savior.
So in looking at this today, I would offer this question.
Why do we share?
What are the reasons that motivates us to share the gospel?
Well, let me give you three of them real quick.
They're not in your notes, but you can put them out if you want to.
Number one, we share the gospel because we have been commanded by Jesus Christ to share
the gospel.
So we do it for Jesus' sake.
I mean, that's one of the reasons he's left us here.
That's one of the purposes of the church.
If it's the great commission, then it's a high priority.
So we do it for Jesus' sake.
I promise you when we share the gospel, we don't do it because it's comfortable necessarily.
We don't do it because it's always fun because sometimes people reject it.
But we do it because we are ambassadors for Jesus Christ.
We represent him on this planet.
That's what light is.
That's what salt is.
We're representing the one that sent us here and placed us here, just like he placed Peter,
just like he placed Philip, just like he placed Paul.
You have been placed.
And so you do it for Jesus' sake.
Secondly, I think we share because we've experienced salvation and we know it's life-changing.
I mean, if you can think of some of the great things that have happened to your life, things
that God has done in your life, since you put your faith and trust in Jesus, you can
get pretty excited about telling others about Jesus.
Now, I have to tell you, most of you that know me know that I'm not a big shopping guy.
Until a few months ago, I'd never even gone into a Costco store in my life and I was very
happy living my life that way.
And then one of my daughters told me about the amazing benefits of going to Costco.
In that same amount of time, a guy came to me, Brad Raleigh, his father-in-law came to
me and he gave me a flashlight that he bought at Costco and encouraged me to go to Costco.
Others planted Costco seeds in my heart by telling of the great deals they got.
So one day my wife and I decided, you know, we need to try out this place, this place called
Costco.
So we went and we thought we'd buy some fresh fruit at a discounted value and we left with
$1,500 worth of furniture and a lifetime membership.
I'm now a Costco guy because somebody planted seeds in my heart for the value of Costco.
I think you know where I'm going with this.
Jesus Christ forgave me and cleansed me of all sins.
So I'm a pretty satisfied customer that I can tell you, you can find forgiveness in
Christ.
He helps me know about the principles of life that I need to be living and the direction
I need to go in.
I have to tell you, I'm pretty satisfied that I can open my Bible and know the Holy Spirit
will illuminate that and direct me in life.
And I encourage you to go as well and find out for yourself.
I know what it means to pray and have prayers answered and I know what it means to be prayed
for and have those prayers answered.
So I'd have to say to you, I'm pretty pleased to be a Christian today and I think you ought
to give it a shot as well because Jesus Christ is real.
Listen, if we can help people go to Costco, why can we not help them know the gospel of
Jesus?
Right?
So we do it because we know that it brings incredible benefit.
But the third reason we share is because if they don't have Christ, they will die and
forever be without him.
The scripture says the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in
Jesus Christ our Lord.
I mean, I need to want to tell somebody else about the gospel because if they don't ever
hear the gospel, then they never have a chance at eternal life.
I need to be looking for people who are without Christ so that I might have an opportunity
to have that conversation with them because it's clear to me, it's personal to me and
so therefore I have a motivation that it becomes clear and personal to them too.
We need to be watching for people like that.
I saw a great article about a week ago and I actually printed it out.
It was such a great article about a woman, a true story that happened just last week,
a woman who was swimming off the coast of China, a beach in China.
I know we don't think about that a lot, but apparently there's a beach in China where
she and her buddy were and she went out into the water.
She had a life ring on, but she went out into the water.
A flotation device was with her, but she got carried away by the waves.
And the person that was there with her looked up and all of a sudden this woman was gone.
And so she alerted the authorities.
I don't know if she got out of the water.
I don't know if she's still in the water, but I can't find my friend and they did a
very involved search for more than 24 hours to look for this woman and nobody could find
her.
Thirty-seven hours into this search, after they'd already called off the typical search,
a tanker, about 50 miles from the coast was in the water and a man on the bridge had binoculars
and was looking and saw this woman floating 50 miles from the shore.
And of course they were able to stop and rescue her, get her back to shore.
It's a really interesting article because it says she was only dehydrated after after
being out there 37 hours.
They gave her a bottle of water and she refused medical help and just walked back into the
area where she was from.
That's a tough woman right there, right?
But the point of the story is somebody was looking and so they saw her.
Are you looking?
I mean we're not looking for people floating 50 miles out into the ocean.
We're looking for people that are floating around on this planet that don't know Christ,
that don't have truth, that don't have light, that were motivated to do it because of all
those reasons.
That's why we share.
It's incredibly important that we do it.
I'll never forget the first church I pastored.
A young couple living about a block or so from the church, we learned that they lived
close to the church and one of their friends asked me if I'd go visit with them.
I'll never forget the visit one of our associate pastors and myself went and this couple was
probably 35 years old.
And it didn't take long for me to tell that they had lived just about every way you want
to live or anybody would want to live for the first 35 years of their life or so.
And yet they were totally dissatisfied with life.
I mean they felt like they'd experienced so many things that were good, so many things
that were bad.
And I realized you probably have never heard anything about what Jesus Christ can do for
you.
So I asked for permission to share the gospel with them and they said, sure, whatever you
want to share.
And I shared with them about Christ and I remember them looking at me.
The woman said, this is the one thing that's missing in my life.
I have nothing spiritual at all in my life and I'm so dissatisfied with the way I've
lived.
I'm looking for this answer and this is the answer right here.
I have to tell you, there are a lot of people like that on this life.
A lot of people waiting who need to hear about how to have life with Jesus.
So it's really important that we know how to begin.
That's the second question, how do we begin?
You know if you read John 1 you'll see a great picture of John the Baptist crying out when
he sees Jesus and says, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
And Bible immediately moves from a conversation by conversation description where two of the
disciples with John the Baptist went to follow Jesus and one of them was Andrew.
As when Andrew went to follow Jesus, he quickly went to find his brother because when he realized
who Jesus was, he says, I'm going to find my brother Simon.
So he goes and gets Simon and brings him as well.
And then we find that the scripture tells us that Jesus also called Philip.
And when Philip realized who Jesus was, he ran and found his brother Nathaniel.
And that's just how the gospel moves.
Now don't get me wrong, I love revivals and I love camps and I love crusades, but you
can never replace the one on one conversation where one person goes to find another person
and talk to them about the life giving power of Jesus Christ.
That's John 1, that's where it all began.
So we begin by looking around where we are and finding people that do not know about
Jesus and it's about planting seeds.
It's about kindness, small conversations.
It's about loving people, praying for people.
It's about letting them know if they ever have a need, you're there to help them with
that and of course in doing that, you can point them to Jesus.
In the rooted book on one page, page 201, it says this, whether Jesus was meeting needs,
making friends or moving people towards God, in all cases, he had a real spiritual impact
and there's no reason we can't do the same.
Sometimes we make it such a big deal that we're frightened to have a conversation, just
love people in the name of Jesus.
And then when you have that conversation, point them to your story, your testimony and
it's the gospel that saved you.
Jesus used the illustration of a sower going out to sow seeds and that's really what we're
supposed to be doing.
Sowing seeds everywhere we go and in Jesus telling of that parable in Luke chapter 5,
he explained it by saying, now the seed is the word of God.
Do you have the word of God in your life?
Throw it out like a seed.
Throw it out like handfuls of seed.
And the way you do that and when you do that and with whom you do that gives you open doors
to have conversations.
And sometimes those conversations don't seem to yield fruit right away, but God will always
use that when you plant that seed in someone's life.
As a pastor, I have a great chance to talk to people when they most need a conversation.
A guy named David called me a few years ago and said, would you go with me to the hospital?
My grandfather is on his deathbed.
I'm pretty sure you won't make it, but we've shared the gospel with him for years and years
and years and he's just not been responding.
Would you go with me?
And I said, David, if you shared the gospel with him for years and years, he may well
be ready.
You're not looking for an expert, you're looking for an invitation.
So we went and I shared the gospel with his grandfather and his grandfather probably heard
it 30 times, but this time on his deathbed, everything looked different because he knew
he was about to meet God one way or another.
Now, I wasn't even the most important person in that conversation.
The people who planted the seeds made that man ready to meet God on his deathbed.
That means the whole church throwing seeds out every day in every way allows somebody
somewhere down the road to be able to help them make that final decision.
So let's make it practical, identify somebody that you need to be praying for, invest in
their lives by conversation, by friendliness, invite them, invite them to come with you
to worship, invite them to your home, have a conversation with them that may one day
open up the door for a deeper conversation.
I forgot the word intercede.
My goodness, we intercede for them all the way through because they need to hear about
Christ and it's amazing what prayer can do.
Finally introduce them to the gospel by telling your story, your before, your after and how
your life changed.
I have one more question to ask you though and that question is, it's a logical question.
If I'm going to be sharing with people, who will help me?
Who will help us?
You remember what it says in Matthew chapter 28 verse 20?
Jesus said, and lo I am with you even to the end of the age.
As long as life goes on, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is inside of
you.
Jesus is literally with you wherever you go, whatever you do.
So when you share the gospel, you are not doing it alone.
That's why in first Corinthians, Paul said, I planted the pot of water, but God is the
one that was causing the growth and that's really what we need to be aware of.
He helps us in looking, he helps us in praying, he helps us in sowing seeds and sharing, he
helps us with the supernatural part that we cannot do, drawing people and convicting people
that they need Christ.
And you know who really closes the deal on these conversations?
It's not you and it's not me and it's not some expert, it's Jesus himself.
He becomes very present and they want him in their lives.
Lo I am with you always even to the end of the age.
That's not just a promise, it says.
You don't have to be afraid when you're flying in an airplane or when you're about to go
through surgery.
I'm with you through all those things.
This was given in the context of witnessing.
Yes, he is always faithful.
He's always there, but especially when you are passing the news on to someone else.
I probably share the gospel with hundreds of people and many times they've said no.
Sometimes they said I'm not open at all and some say not now and then occasionally someone
will say I'm ready.
But I think at the end of the age I'm going to look back and some of those seeds I planted
and some of those rejections that I experienced are no longer rejections because God has used
those seeds along the way to get them ready for the day they do accept Christ as Lord
and Savior.
You can do this because He's with you and He's caused you to it.
Why and how do we share all those things?
He's made it possible for us.
I love what Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15, but sanctify Christ as Lord in
your heart, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account
for the hope that is in you with gentleness and with reverence.
I want to close this message today by making sure you know that if you do not have a before
story and an after story, if you don't have that moment that made all the difference in
the world, you can have it before you leave the room today.
You can have it before you walk out of this building.
We actually have people that are prepared every week to talk about these decisions.
We call them decision stations.
There's one right there, there's another one back here.
We're available to answer the question of whether you've ever had that moment of accepting
Christ as Lord and Savior.
If you're unsure, if you have doubts, settle those doubts today.
You can't lose anything by settling those doubts.
If you're sure you've never accepted Christ before, then today we can help you know how.
It's still your decision, but we'd help you know how.
No sense in walking out of here with darkness when you can have the light of the gospel
in your life.
I want to encourage you after prayers, stop by the decision station.
I'd also like to invite you, if you're a guest, to come to our guest reception room or outside
the center exit doors and across the hallway.
I'd love to meet you.
And I want to invite you to come back next week.
What's God say about money?
What's God's view about money?
It's not a giving message, but it's a message about how God views money and how He uses
it or the lack of it in your life.
You don't want to miss this.
Let's stand together.
Father, I thank you so much that you've given us clarity with the gospel and you've given
us a personal, intimate experience with the gospel if we are truly believers.
I ask you today to not let a person leave this building without being sure, being certain
that they have eternal life.
And Lord, those that need to have testimonies that don't have them, allow them, Lord, to
have life-changing conversations that lead to that decision.
And then Father, as we leave this place today, I pray that we might go sowing seeds and return
rejoicing.
Father, we ask this all in Jesus' name.
Amen.