[0:00] where you're going when you die. It's pretty important stuff, huh? So let's get into the Bible now. Find in your Bibles, please, the book of 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians, I'll take you to chapter 4 to begin.
[0:21] And we're going to look at three places, chapter 4, chapter 5, and chapter 10. And just pull a word out of each chapter. And they're all related to the same thing.
[0:37] I want to be pretty simple with you this morning. And try to gear our attention toward what we're going to be doing here in a few nights. And in this outreach on Halloween.
[0:51] But more importantly, to also pray God will use this to get inside of your heart. And as a conviction, to be mindful of the lost.
[1:04] And to have a burden for them. So in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, let's start in verse 3. And we'll read 3 through 5. The Bible says, So the devil, the God of this world, doesn't want the light, the glorious, the light of the glorious gospel of Christ to shine unto them.
[1:45] He doesn't want them to hear the gospel, does he? That gospel is powerful. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And if it's hid, well, it's hid to them that are lost.
[1:57] And there's a reason. Because there's a God in this world that's using a lot of different means to blind them. In verse 5, then, here's the word preach. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
[2:16] So the word is preach. You see it in verse 5. We preach. And it's the gospel's the context. The glorious gospel of Christ is mentioned in verse 4. Now come to chapter 5.
[2:27] Because they're blind, because they're lost, because they're hell-bound, we preach Christ. We preach not ourselves, no. We preach Christ, crucified, their only hope.
[2:41] 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 14 says, For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, now we're talking about Jesus Christ again, his death on the cross, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.
[3:02] Well, there's elements of the gospel all in that. And fast-forwarding the chapter, verse 17, If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. We know that passage. And let's pick it up at verse 18.
[3:12] All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
[3:22] To wit, meaning that is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
[3:39] Now then, we are ambassadors. We are. They are lost. We read that earlier. Them that are lost.
[3:50] But we, that are born again, have the light come in. We are something not lost. We are ambassadors for Christ. You say, well, I've only been saved for a week.
[4:01] You're an ambassador for Christ. So, you've got some ground to cover, something to learn. I've been saved 20 years. You're still an ambassador for it. I'm old. I can't. You're an ambassador for Jesus Christ.
[4:13] Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. No, that's the pastors and the mission. No, that's us. That's all of us. That's you. That's you. We are ambassadors for Christ.
[4:25] As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. The word I'm pulling out of verse 20, as though God did beseech you.
[4:38] First, it was preach. Here, it's beseech. The word beseech means to implore or to appeal to. And the message is we're appealing to you and Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
[4:54] We could say be saved, get saved, trust Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5, the word here is beseech. Now turn to chapter 10.
[5:04] And there's one more word. And in this chapter, it's reach. You'll see again plainly the context surrounding the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[5:21] Beginning in verse 12. For we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise.
[5:37] But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God has distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you. For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure as though we reached not unto you.
[5:51] For we are come as far as to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ. Not boasting of things without our measure, that is, of other men's labors, but having hope that your faith is, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly to preach the gospel in regions beyond you and not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hand.
[6:17] Now here the word is reach. They reached as far as these believers and they even intend on reaching beyond them in verse 16 to get the gospel to others.
[6:30] The language Paul used here is reached them. And we still do that today. We still say you need to reach the lost or some churches will have a slogan, preaching the word and reaching the world and a missions program and an idea like that.
[6:44] We call ministries to win the lost outreach ministries. And so the first word we saw was preach, which is to broadcast the truth, to preach Christ died for our sins.
[6:58] The second word was beseech. And beseech is to implore someone to receive it, to receive that message.
[7:09] And third is to reach or to go, to go to reach out to where they are and to get that gospel to them. I'm sure you've heard this little kind of catchy phrase, each one reach one.
[7:24] It's an idea that everybody has a responsibility to carry the gospel to somebody else. And in the thoughts of churches and local churches, it's an incredible concept that the congregation would automatically double if each one would reach one.
[7:41] That's just simple mathematics or you could call it multiplication. I had to think about that. And if that took place a second time, we would quadruple and we wouldn't be able to fit into this building.
[7:57] The thought is incredible that in one year's time, if each one would reach one and that congregation would reach one, the sky's the limit. We would grow out of this place in two to three years quickly.
[8:11] It's an incredible concept. That'd be a good problem to have, I guess. Amen. Now, in light of Tuesday's outreach and the kids and families of Sylmar coming from their homes to these streets right here, and they're going to be looking for candy, I want to preach to you and emphasize how we can reach them and just give you some simple thoughts, some simple ways that we can attempt to do that, not only on Tuesday night, but always, and to be more soul conscious and to ask God to help you like he needs to help me to submit to him and to be more soul conscious to reach the lost around us.
[8:50] Let's go back to Matthew chapter 5, the gospel of Matthew in chapter number 5, to preach, to beseech, and to reach with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[9:15] Matthew 5, and all the way to the end, I want you to see this thought here, pull a thought out of these two verses of 46 and 47.
[9:29] Christ says this, If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same. The publicans are, well, they're the tax collectors, they're the public officials, and Jews at that, they were despised among the common people.
[9:46] They're working for the Roman crowd. They're against them. They've sided with the Romans. So they're the enemy a lot of times. They're looked at as the enemy. And the thought was, if you love the people that love you, so what?
[10:01] Even the worst of you do that. So then in verse 47, If ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so?
[10:14] And the answer is yeah. It's implied, yeah, they all do that. We could even say, yeah, the lost, the world does that. They greet and salute those that they know. They're friendly with those that they know.
[10:26] And they love those that are familiar and close to them. And so the thought here is, how can we reach one? I want to say, based off of this word in 47, if ye salute your brethren only, and I'll use that Bible word to say, you can reach someone with a salutation, a greeting, a salutation.
[10:48] The Bible word is salute here, and it's the same thing as greeting. As a matter of fact, the word greet shows up 22 times in your Bible, but the word salute shows up 46, more than double that.
[11:00] That seems to be the word that Paul uses quite a bit to salute so-and-so and so-and-so. You read at the end of his epistles, he's always saying, say hi to somebody and give them my regards. I want to say this morning, you can reach one with a salutation.
[11:15] It's natural, it's easy to greet somebody that you know, somebody that you're already connected with, somebody that it wouldn't take them by surprise for you to greet them, for you to salute them, to say hello, to spark a conversation.
[11:31] I was dropping the girls off in Burbank Airport just the other week, and as I took them back to their gate, we were standing there waiting, and there was a line formed, you know how Southwest does it, if you've ever flown them, the A group was standing in line.
[11:46] And we were standing off to the side because they were the B group. And as we're standing there, a lady came behind me, walking through the concourse, and she hollered out to a man that was standing in line.
[11:57] She's like, hey, I'll see you there. And it turns out they were coworkers that were going to the same destination, but on two different flights, and he had a layover, and she mocked him because she had a direct flight, and she was going to beat him to the spot.
[12:10] And he was just a random face in the crowd, but she knew him. And so she hollered out to him, hey, so-and-so. And he looked up from his phone, and like everybody else, oblivious to the world, phone, and then sees his friend and coworker, and they had a brief discourse, a brief conversation.
[12:29] This lady was friendly to him. She wasn't friendly to me. She just walked right by me like I didn't even exist. She walked by everybody like she didn't care.
[12:41] But why did she call in it? Because she knew him. And why did he call back? Because he knew her, and they were something. So that's easy. And that's normal. We do that when we see somebody we know.
[12:52] But Christ says, well, even the publicans do that. But if you're going to reach somebody that you don't know, if you're going to reach some sinner with the gospel of Jesus Christ, you might have to do it with a simple greeting.
[13:08] You might have to use that little greeting to crack the door so that you and your heart knows, I want to get in, I want to get the gospel, and I want the light of the glorious gospel of Christ to shine unto them.
[13:19] Right now the door is closed. Maybe you could use something as simple as a salutation. Somebody that's a stranger. Somebody that you don't know.
[13:31] How do you talk to them? How do you get the gospel to them? It starts as easy as opening the door of conversation. They may not be from this church. They may not be from any church.
[13:41] They may not be a believer. They may be an atheist. They may be liberal. They may not have your views. But they're lost and on their way to hell. Who cares what their views are?
[13:53] When you have the light of the gospel and you know that they need to get it, put all that aside. Find a way to get the gospel in. And it may be that a simple greeting could help do that.
[14:05] The Bible says, A man that hath friends must do what? Show himself friendly. He's got to do something first. Reaching one with a salutation, a greeting, a gesture of kindness, of friendliness.
[14:23] This is not a strong suit for me. It's more in my nature to stand behind, to let them go by, to not step forward and not to spark a conversation.
[14:37] Sometimes I'd just rather ignore. But they need to be reached. And I won't be able to use that excuse in front of the throne of God if he says, I had a lost soul that needed me and they were open and I brought them right to you.
[14:50] And I won't be able to say, but I just don't like talking to people. I'll be condemned in that day. That's not an excuse. Greeting somebody. Just an attempt to be friendly so that you can crack the door to reach their soul.
[15:05] This Tuesday, we're going to have some Bible Baptist, born again Christians in the parking lot. And we're going to be putting on a little bit of a Halloween-ish show to try to reach some people in this neighborhood.
[15:20] I wonder if you'll attempt to reach one. I wonder if on Tuesday night, will you attempt to spark a conversation with a friendly gesture, with just a greeting, a salutation, to show yourself friendly, to make an attempt to meet them, to learn a name, to allow perhaps the conversation to open up toward another level.
[15:44] And that'll be where I take you next. You can reach them, number one, with a salutation. Secondly, you can reach them with an invitation. With an invitation. And I'm not going to turn you to a specific scripture to point this out.
[15:57] It's kind of all over. Jesus Christ was a great inviter. He was a great inviter. He'd invite every man. He'd say things like, if any man thirst, let him come unto me.
[16:10] He'd actually say, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. He would say things when they would try to shush away certain people, even the youngest of the...
[16:21] He'd say, no, suffer the little children to come unto me. He was a great inviter. He invited the poor. He invited the lame. He invited lepers.
[16:32] He invited the blind. He invited the halt. He invited the faithless as well as the faithful. And at the end, look at Matthew 23. I'll show you this one verse that I'm thinking on.
[16:45] At the end of his ministry, after being rejected so many times by the nation of Israel, he wept that they would not receive his invitation.
[17:00] In Matthew 23, verse 37, Christ lamented. He cried over Jerusalem. In verse 37, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how oft would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.
[17:25] Ye refused his invitation. But you can reach one. You can attempt to reach one with an invitation. You can attempt to have that greeting, that salutation, hoping that I can then invite them and get the conversation going the right way.
[17:44] Invite them to church. That's an easy one. That's an easy thing to invite somebody to, is church. And it's a great place for somebody to come and be around other believers and be in a place that they may not feel so comfortable and realize, there's so many testimonies of sinners lost, coming into a church service and wanting to get out.
[18:05] I don't belong here. This is the pressure. The spiritual pressure's there. They'll feel it. Get them in. Let them feel it. Let the Lord work on them. Just invite them to church. They can get exposed to the gospel, confronted with eternity.
[18:17] That's a good thing. You can get the conversation going depending on how it goes. Invite them to your house. Invite them for a cup of coffee. Invite to talk a little bit further after work.
[18:27] Whatever the case is. But an invitation. An invitation to sit down and introduce them to Jesus Christ. What about Tuesday night, church? Can you come Tuesday night and offer an invitation to someone?
[18:43] You say, well, I don't want to decorate my trunk. I don't have time for that. I'm too busy. I don't want to be handing out candy and do all of that. Say, well, what about this? Could you just come and just cruise the lot?
[18:55] Could you just come and support us and be part of Bible Baptist Church's outreach and take a stack of door hangers if you want to and just hand them out to whoever's around? Just cruise the lot and find somebody.
[19:07] Find a parent that's standing, waiting for their child to go get the candy and say, hey, I want to invite you to come out to church if you don't go to church. Could you do that? Could you invite them? Tuesday's a great chance and there'll be people standing right here in our parking lot.
[19:23] You won't have to go find them. God's going to bring them to us. They just need an invitation. An invitation to return to church. You might say something like, hey, you just want you to know we're doing all this so that we can invite you to come and join us on Sunday morning.
[19:38] In two weeks from now, we're going to go out into the community again with those door hangers and place them on people's doors and in some cases get to talk or chat to somebody that's sitting out and when that happens, I'd like to say something like, hey, we're from the Bible Baptist Church over here on Fenton and Polk and we're just going through your neighborhood inviting folks to church and you are actually the person that I am looking for.
[20:05] You know why? Because you didn't go to church today. And that's easy. And I've said it several times and generally they just smile or they nod or they acknowledge, yeah, I'm not in church today.
[20:17] Yeah, you're not. And so that's who we're looking for. But just invite them. Is there somebody on your job? Is there somebody in your neighborhood? Maybe you don't know it yet, but they're just waiting for an invitation.
[20:31] Maybe they don't know it yet, but God would use that invitation. He would use you in Christ's stead to invite them. So could you do that?
[20:43] Turn to Luke chapter 14. I want to give you another thought here. Luke chapter 14. You can reach one with that salutation and crack the door.
[20:54] You can reach one with an invitation to come to church, to study the Bible, people to consider Jesus Christ and what he did for them.
[21:07] And here's one that's a little bit different. A little different than some people even care to think about, but I'm going to present it to you. In Luke 14, start in verse 16, and we'll read this short story here to 24.
[21:24] Then said he unto him, a certain man made a great supper and bade many. He invited many to come. There's the invitation. Verse 17, and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, come for all things are now ready.
[21:39] And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I bought a piece of ground and I must needs go and see it. I pray they have me excused. Another said, I bought five yoke of oxen and I will prove them.
[21:50] I go to prove them. I pray they have me excused. Another said, I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came and showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in hither the poor and the maimed and the haunt and the blind.
[22:08] And the servant said, it is done as thou hast commanded and yet there is room. So up to this point he's invited many guests, prestigious perhaps, friends, close relatives, whatever, and they turned him down.
[22:20] They rejected the invitation and that's going to happen. That happens a lot. But you don't have to sweat that. You don't have to say, oh, I quit. Because then he sent him out to some, what you might say, the lower crowd.
[22:33] And some of them responded perhaps, but the servant said this, there is room. Now in verse 23, the Lord said to the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and notice the word, compel them to come in.
[22:48] He didn't say invite them anymore, bid them, but he said, now compel them. Find a way to get them here that my house may be filled.
[23:01] For I say unto you that none of those men which are bidden shall taste of my supper. I don't know about you, but when I read this and I'm thinking on this, I'm convinced that they were just coming for a free meal.
[23:13] They were just compelled because they were going to get something for nothing. The others apparently didn't want it, didn't want the fellowship, but these out there, they were compelled.
[23:25] They, perhaps the master said, you find a way to get them here, whatever it takes, just get them in the door because I want my house filled.
[23:36] And so what I want to say, thirdly, we said salutation and invitation, and I'll use this, reaching one with a, I'll call it a donation, with a gimmick, with I'm going to give you something if you come to church.
[23:50] I know some people frown on that. I've been around it. I've heard them say things, oh, they mock and they say, oh, you're giving candy to kids. You're giving prizes to visitors and you're just trying to trick them.
[24:01] You're trying to trick them into coming to church. You're baiting them. That's what you're doing. You're baiting the children as if that's a violation of the scripture, as if that's a violation of their free will to offer them something.
[24:16] Now, if you try to say, if you'll come and pray this prayer to receive Christ, I'll give you, now that'd be, that'd be definitely offline. But they're trying to reach them with a donation by convincing them the word is compelling them to come.
[24:33] And I want you to know, as long as it's modest, as long as it's, as long as it's reasonable, I don't have a problem with that stuff. I don't have a problem with giving somebody a prize for bringing visitors to church or giving kids candy and things, prizes earning for saying memory verses and that kind of thing.
[24:52] I don't find a problem with that. I don't expect the lost to be waiting in line Sunday morning when I show up here to get into these places. I don't expect to see that and I haven't seen it yet.
[25:04] And I don't expect their kids to even think twice about showing up to church when their mom and dad don't. If the focus is on Jesus Christ, if it's modest or moderate in its appeal, then I say reach them with a donation.
[25:20] Reach them with a gimmick. Reach them with some giveaway. I want to tell you that I'm interested in doing that on Tuesday in some way. And I'm just going to put this out to you now and I welcome your input.
[25:34] I welcome your thoughts. My wife and I have been talking about it for a few days. that I'd like to do something on the side from the trunks with a table to where either we have the hand of my card out and say bring this back on Sunday morning and have your name entered into the drawing for such and such.
[25:53] We'd have to go pick up whatever that such and such is. But we've had an idea. We've talked about this and I want to do something like that. Part of me says it'll never work and no one's going to show up.
[26:03] And then another side says have faith. Do something. And if no one shows up take it back to the store. Who cares? No harm done. But I want to try something.
[26:15] And so I hope you'll get behind me on that. And I hope you'll be interested. And I don't have an idea really solidified. So if you have ideas or thoughts tell me after the service. Bombard me with it.
[26:26] And let's come up with something that we could offer. That's the best we came up with so far. We talked about several things. And I welcome your ideas. We'll try to nail something down and make it happen.
[26:36] Because it's just an idea. I want to try to reach somebody and I'll use a donation to do it. One more thing. And finally number four is to reach one with a presentation.
[26:48] That is a presentation of the gospel. In the passages we read it was a mention strongly of the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[26:59] The glorious gospel of Christ. A presentation of the gospel could be just as simple as handing out a gospel track. It could be that.
[27:09] It contains the truth in the word of God that can God willing open their eyes to their need for Christ. And the opportunities to use those abound.
[27:20] This coming Tuesday we're going to have gospel tracks to hand out. We got 500 tracks. There are actually five different titles a hundred of them each and my goal and desire is that each station that we have at least five stations that hand out one particular title.
[27:40] And I know how these comic book tracks work. You just get one. It's a track. It gets their attention. It's a cartoon. But when you get two or three or four it becomes a little bit of a there's more.
[27:52] There's more. They want to collect them. They want to get them. I've read stories accounts of kids at Halloween that rip out all the bags and get all their tracks out and all the candy sits in the pile for now because they're going to read their tracks first.
[28:04] They're just sucked into these cartoon books and little do they know that they're trying to reach their soul and open their eyes to what Jesus Christ did for them.
[28:16] I've read an account here it says this is a testimony it says we used to keep our porch light off on Halloween but after you encouraged us we left our lights on and shared Christ.
[28:27] All the tracks went first and we had candy left over. Guess where that was from? California. There's a number of stories on track websites that tell testimonies of people handing out tracks or people that have received gospel tracks and they write back to that company and say I read this track the Lord opened my eyes I got saved and on and on there's messages from men that are pastors today who received a gospel track.
[28:58] It's loads of them you should familiarize yourself with this it's a good thing. I've read from Chick publications that they will have they throw out they don't have no idea how many people will participate on Tuesday but from 50 tracks to a thousand tracks that people are ordering to put out.
[29:17] I read one from Venice California of a testimony of reaching people in their neighborhood with their tracks it's all over the place and we're going to do it here too. A presentation of the gospel as simple as a cartoon track.
[29:32] Kids are going to show up here looking for candy and my goal is to get five different tracks into their hands and into their homes and to let the Lord use it and to let the Lord deal with their heart.
[29:44] Perhaps you could take it a step further. Perhaps you could engage in a conversation one about eternity. Maybe you're a good talker maybe you're good at speaking to people maybe you could show up and just be here to try to converse with people to learn their name to try to get the door open about whether or not they go to church or even to present your testimony on how you came to know Jesus Christ as your Savior.
[30:12] A presentation of the gospel can be in different forms. We can reach one with that presentation but the Bible says how shall they hear without a preacher?
[30:24] Somebody needs to present the gospel to them. Now I'm aiming these thoughts this morning at preparing us for the outreach that's coming in just a few nights and I know that not all of you will be here for that and I know that it won't work for all of that but I'm imploring some of you to come.
[30:42] Some of you signed up some of you didn't and I want you to be part of it. I want you to be an active and engaged member if possible with this outreach. These things don't come around very often and when they do let's jump in with both feet and let's try to do something that can reach not just say hey we're here but actually get some gospel to them and get a solid invitation to them and let them actually meet your smiling face.
[31:07] A child of God that is a ambassador for Jesus Christ that is beseeching them in Christ's stead here on this dirt beseeching them to be reconciled to God.
[31:21] These are souls souls that God created souls that God desires to come to Jesus Christ to obtain the forgiveness that Christ offers to obtain the eternal life that God offers through Jesus Christ these souls God knows but they need to be reached with the gospel and so God is beseeching them to be reconciled by us.
[31:48] So will you respond to this message? Will you accept responsibility as a child of God to participate in this ministry as we read of reconciliation?
[32:02] Will you accept that as a responsibility that you have? God gave you you or will you shirk it? Will you duck it and say I'm not good at that?
[32:16] Surely there's something you can do. Surely there's a way you can participate. If you don't know what it is then get on your knees and say God what can I do to help the gospel get into the hands and the minds and the hearts of the lost?
[32:32] What can I do? I want to be part of this. Can you preach Christ? Can you beseech them to receive salvation?
[32:43] Can you reach one? Can each one reach one? I don't think we're going to double in size next week. I think we're going to no.
[32:56] I don't know what might happen but let's be faithful. Let's do something. Let's get a zeal. Let's get a little motivated for it and let's pray. Will you do that?
[33:07] If you can't be here can I implore you can I get you to commit to pray. Pray number one that God's people will have boldness and that God's people here at Bible Baptist Church will have conviction and drive and desire to win the loss to Christ.
[33:25] To start with that greeting to break the ice to carry it forward if possible into an invitation to join us to come out to church. maybe even to bring them in here with a gimmick.
[33:40] But at any rate to present the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's bow our heads together. I told you we'd be simple this morning. It's a simple thought and it's a necessary one.
[33:51] time. cite way.