[0:00] Jim Roberts here tonight. God's using this man. Come on up, Brother Jim. He is using him greatly in the country of India, one of the most exciting ministries. If you haven't seen the video, I'm sure it's online. It's already been shown here, so you can go online and look at it.
[0:12] But God's using him. Y'all listen to Brother Jim. Well, I'm not sure how much of a blessing that we are to you guys, but you guys sure are a blessing to us. My first introduction to Vision Baptist Church was at a mission conference September 2010. I was a missionary. I had all the zeal in the world. I wanted to do great things for Jesus, but I had absolutely no idea how to do any of those things. I wanted to plant churches. I wanted to see men saved and trained for the ministry, but I had no idea until I came and met Pastor Gardner, and he told me the exact same thing. He said, man, you got a lot of zeal, but you have no idea what you're doing. I said, that's exactly right. And so I hung around because I didn't know what I was doing, and I'm still hanging around because, you know, I still don't know what I'm doing.
[0:57] So I just want to say thank you to Vision for that. And then the next year, Trent had prayed and asked for somebody to take a Bible to go to the country of India, and God burned my heart to go to that same country, to the country of India in 2011, and took that Bible. And I'm just thankful that God uses his word. I say it all the time when I'm up here, and I'm amazed that God would use somebody like me, but I'm not amazed, and I'm not shocked that God uses his word, because that's what God does. It's not in me. It's not in my power. It's not in my tactfulness or how awesome I am. It's nothing like that. It's his word. You just go and preach his word, man, and it works. It's amazing to see what it does, and it just works. So tonight, I'm just thankful that I get to serve Jesus. We've been in India for six and a half years. I get to go back in November, preach a pastor's conference. We've got three new pastors that are going to be joining the pastor's conference, so I'm excited about that, praying that God allows us to be able to start seven new churches on our next trip over there this coming March, so help us pray about that. I don't have the money to do it. I don't have the men to do it, but I know God can, so I'm excited about it to see what God's going to do. So Romans chapter 9 tonight, just for a little bit, Romans chapter 9, verses 1 through 5. I want to preach about having a burden for the lost just for a little bit. I'm not going to keep you very long.
[2:17] About, I don't know, 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes, and we'll be done. So Romans chapter 9, verses 1 through 5, it says, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law, and the service of God and the promises, whose are the fathers and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who was over all God, blessed forever. Amen. I want to talk about a burden for the lost, and this is Paul talking here and how much he loves his people and how much he wants to see them saved and what kind of burden that he has on his heart for his people. Point number one is that he had sincerity in this. He wasn't lying. He wasn't joking. He wasn't, he wasn't just telling, he wasn't just trying to get a rise out of people. He says, I truly love you. He said, I want to tell you how I feel in my heart and I love you and I'm worried about you and I want to see you serve Christ.
[3:17] I don't want to see you do these rituals and these things. I want to see you worship the living God, the Messiah. I want to see you worship. He says, in truth in Christ, I'm not lying. He says, I'm not lying to him. He says, my conscience bearing witness in the Holy Ghost. A lot of times we say, man, I swear to God, I'll do that. I swear. He's really saying it and he really means it. He says, God is my witness. The Holy Spirit is my witness. This is how much it means to me. I want to see these people saved and not go to hell. Paul is preaching the gospel of grace to the Gentiles, but while he's doing that, he never neglects the people that are closest to his heart and those are his people.
[3:53] He loves his people. Number two, we see genuine sorrow. He had a broken heart for these people. He was affected by what he saw. We read in the book of Matthew chapter nine, how Jesus saw the, uh, saw the crowds. He saw the people and his heart was broken. He had compassion on the people. That's what Paul was doing. Paul says, I have compassion, a real heaviness, a greatness, a heaviness, a continual sorrow in my heart, because I know that you're going to hell because I know that without the truth of the gospel, that you will never be saved. If we understand what the Bible says about heaven and hell, we should have deeper feelings about our neighbors, about our friends, about the people we work with and about the world. We should have a compassion, a sorrow in our heart, not because we just love these people, but because they're dying and going to hell and without the truth of God's word, that's exactly what they're going to go, where they're going to go. How you feel when a loved one dies, the feeling that you get in a funeral home, when you're sitting beside the bed of someone that is dying. That's what Paul felt all the time for his people. Number three, we see his sacrifice. He was willing to do anything to reach his people with the gospel. We see in Exodus chapter 32, verse number 32, that Moses also felt the same for his people. He said, I wish that I could be accursed from Christ. Paul fully understood what this meant. These were not just light words that he used.
[5:12] He understood what these words meant. It would mean being separated from Christ. Paul says, I'm willing to give up all my rights. I'm willing to be accursed to Christ for you so that you could be saved. It would mean going to hell for all of eternity. It would mean losing his life to save theirs. That's what it meant. Paul understood what it meant, but yet he said it anyway. He says, if I could be accursed, just me to save all of you. He said, that's the price I would pay to save you. Paul wanted to see him saved. He hurt for them and he wanted them to know that Christ was Paul's life. Everything about him revolved around Jesus and what he had done on the cross, but Paul wanted to see them saved enough that he risked his own comfort. He risked his own happiness. He risked his own security so that they would be saved for his brethren, for his family, and for his countrymen. They were a blessed nation.
[6:08] They had every opportunity, but they wasted it. They had every opportunity to come to Christ, but yet they wasted that opportunity. They worshiped the ordinances instead of the God of the ordinances. Instead of the ordinance bringing them to Jesus, they worshiped other things. God had given the Israelites great blessings and great benefits. They were adopted. It wasn't the Chinese.
[6:28] It wasn't the Americans. It wasn't the parasites, the Hebizites, whatever they called in there. It wasn't all them. It was the Israelites. They were the adopted. They were God's chosen people. He revealed His glory to them. They had seen the glory of God like no others, the cloud and the pillar of fire in the wilderness. They had seen His glory fill the temple. They had seen Moses' face glow with His glory. They had the covenants. God had given great covenants and promises to Israel.
[6:55] He promised them land. He promised them blessings. He promised that they would be a blessing. He promised that they would be a great nation. He gave them the law. It was given to them and through them and for them to be a blessing among all nations. They were given the service of God. They were given the word of God. They were allowed to serve the one and only God. They were given a privilege that no other country, no other group of people received. They were given the promises. The Jewish problem is the same problem that we as cultural Christians have today. Romans chapter 10 verse number 1 through 4 says, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
[7:31] For I bear them record that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law of righteousness to everyone that believeth. The Israelites had a zeal of God. They loved Him. They worked hard. Their zeal, however, was not according to knowledge. They were doing what they knew from their parents, from their culture, but it wasn't the right thing and it wasn't what God had said and what God had told them to do.
[7:58] They didn't realize that God had another plan and that He never intended us to live up to the law. The law was meant to drive us to Him, to drive them to Him. They struggled to be good enough, not realizing that they could never be good enough and they were only frustrating themselves.
[8:14] In our pride, sometimes we don't want to admit that we and ourselves are not good enough and can't become good enough. We think that if we do, do, and do, it'll get us closer to God, but it'll never get us any closer. Jesus is the end of the law. He came. He fulfilled it.
[8:27] Then He died for us that He can make us right. Number five, Jesus is God in the flesh. Come to save us. Look what it says. Verse number five, who are our fathers and of whom are concerning the flesh? Christ came, who is over all. God, blessed forever. Jesus is God in the flesh. Come to save us.
[8:43] He is over all. There is no one greater than Him. There is no one greater than Christ. He's worthy. Jesus is all. There is no name above His name. There is no other name whereby people can be saved suffered through Jesus Christ. Not only is He over all, He's God. Jesus is God. He's not just a good man, a wonderful prophet, a great guy. He is God. There is no one else. He is God. It's Jesus. He is God. He's blessed forever. He is to be blessed above all. He is the one we're worshiping tonight. He is the one we're worshiping all through this week and every time we meet together. But yet people all through the world have never heard His name. They've never heard who He is. And if they have heard of Him, they don't understand who He is. They've never heard the proper view of who Jesus Christ is.
[9:28] They're not worshiping Him for who He is. He is blessed forever and He is blessed above all. The greatest truth in this passage is simply Jesus Christ. What we couldn't do, Christ did. That's what He's telling me. He said, hey, I love you. I want to see you saved. Christ has done it all.
[9:43] And if you trust in Him, you can be saved. Jesus is the answer for the Jewish person. Jesus is the answer for the cultural Christian. Jesus is the answer for your family. He's the answer for your friends. He's the answer for our city. He's the answer for our country. And He's the answer for the world. There is no other answer except for Jesus Christ. I've got four questions and then I'm done.
[10:05] Paul had a broken heart for his people. What do you feel? What do you feel about lost and dying people going to hell? And I'm not just talking about missionaries. I'm talking about every single one of us in here. If you work a job, I guarantee you work with someone that's lost.
[10:24] How does that make you feel? Because for Paul, it was the greatest sorrow. It was the greatest burden in his life. He says, I have continual sorrow. How do you feel? How do you feel? Do you hurt for others?
[10:38] Do you hurt to see people not coming to Christ and not coming to church and not worshiping the one and true God? Paul felt that way. How do we feel? Do you hurt for or do you worry about? Do you pray for those in your family? Do you pray for those that you work with? Do you pray for those in your church and on your mission field? Do we pray for those people? Do we pray for those that are enemies and hunger for their salvation? Muslims? Do we pray for them? Do we hurt for those that are deep in sin and have totally ruined their life? How do we feel? That's my question. How do you feel when you see a world that is dying and going to hell? How does it make you feel? Number two, what are you willing to risk?
[11:24] Paul was willing to risk it all. He says, I will be accursed from Christ so that you could be saved. He says, I'm willing to give up my own salvation, my eternal life so that you can be saved. What are you willing to risk? When I was in the military, I was in the Navy. I would come home on weekends every once in a while when I was lost. I went saved and my mom, I'd come home with a bag full of dirty clothes and say, mom, will you wash my clothes? And of course, my mom's a sweet lady. She said, of course, I'll wash your clothes. So I was still living very bad. I was still drinking and I still, you know, didn't care anything about church. I wasn't going, didn't care anything about the Bible. I didn't care anything about that. So when I would, my parents, my mom would wash my clothes. She would pack my bag back and I'd get back to the barracks and there'd be a Bible in the middle of my, of a sea bag. And I'd throw, I'd take the Bible and she'd be like, ah, Bible. So I just put it down, you know, over there. I didn't care nothing about it. Never opened it. I called my mom and be like, hey, thanks for washing my clothes. Why is there a Bible in my bag? She said, Jim, if you read the Bible, it'll pay. It'll pay if you read your Bible. And what mama was doing was putting, she was putting like five, $10 bills in John 3, 16 and Ephesians 2 and Romans 5. So she, so she knew that, that I would open the Bible and get that and hopefully read it and might get saved. But all I was doing is just like, oh, hey, taking the money out. And then I'd get to work and I had these uniforms on, you know, we have pockets and everything. And I began, I'd feel something in my pocket and I'd, in my pocket about, oh man, that's Romans 3, 23. Look at that. She's putting, she's putting, she's putting verses in my pockets of the clothes, of the clothes that she washed for me.
[13:05] But you know what she was doing? She was praying and she was crawling around on the ground because she knew that her son was dying and going to hell. And she said that without God's word, he's not going to get saved. And she loved me. She was willing to risk our friendship that we had.
[13:23] She was willing to risk the relationship that a father, I mean, that a son and a mother have, that a son and a father has. She was willing to risk all that so that she could give me the gospel. There's a girl that I went to school with. Her name was Jenny Alexander.
[13:38] She was a Christian and she was church of God, but she was, she was a believer. And she made it very well known. She didn't go to parties. She didn't do any of that stuff. But you know what? Everybody, nobody in school made fun of her.
[13:52] You know why? Because she was real. She was real. She, the same Jenny you saw on the volleyball court is the same Jenny you saw in the halls. And you know, she wasn't going to drink. She wasn't going to cuss.
[14:02] She wasn't going to do what she, what, what all the rest of us were doing. She wouldn't do that. And everyone respected her. But yet she was willing to offend you so that she could serve Jesus Christ. What are you willing to risk for the cause of Christ?
[14:16] A friendship? A relationship? What are you willing to risk? If heaven is real and hell is real, are you willing to risk a friendship to tell people about Jesus? Are you willing to forego some of your comfort and pleasures to put the Lord Jesus first in your life and in a conversation?
[14:33] Are you willing to sacrifice and make sure your family knows about Jesus? Jesus, I know family can be some of the hardest people to share Jesus with, but you've got to do it. We have to do it. What are you willing to risk?
[14:43] Are you willing to put giving the gospel before business, before pleasure, before life itself? Are you willing to give it before you do your own desires and you do your will? What are we willing to risk for the gospel?
[14:54] And who are we willing to risk it for? Number three, who are we willing to risk it for? C.T. Studd said this, and he said a lot. I like that guy. He said, nail the colors to the mast.
[15:05] That is the right thing to do, and therefore, that is what we must do. And do it now. What colors? The colors of Christ. The work he has given us to do to the evangelization of the un-evangelized.
[15:16] Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible. By faith in the omnipotence, fidelity and wisdom of the almighty Savior who gave the command. Is there a wall in our path? By our God we will leap over it.
[15:29] Are there lions and scorpions in the way? We will trample them under our feet. Does a mountain bar our progress saying, be thou cast into the sea? We will march on. Soldiers of Jesus never surrender.
[15:40] Nail the colors to the mast. Who are you willing to risk it for? Mark's going to China. And Mark, you're a great encouragement to me. And I'll just say it in front of everybody.
[15:51] You're going to a country, they may kick you out. You have no idea. But yet you're willing to risk it anyway. Because there's 1.3 billion people that need to hear the gospel. What are you willing to risk it for?
[16:02] Who are you willing to risk it for? John, I've been to New York City. It's not going to be easy. But you're willing to risk it. You're willing to give your life. What are you willing to risk it?
[16:12] Who are you willing to risk it for? Your family? Your friends? What will we do? We have to evangelize the un-evangelized. So often we're so fearful to tell people about Jesus and eternal life.
[16:24] Number four. And last. We've got three minutes. When are you going to start? When are you going to start? There's no better time than now. And I'm not saying you've got to be a missionary.
[16:36] Because to be honest with you, I don't care. But you need to do God's will right now where you are. Be the light that this world, this city, this country needs right now.
[16:47] When are we going to start? Are you going to begin praying for your friends by name? Will you begin praying for your family by name? Your countries by name? Your cities? Will you invite them to hear the gospel preached?
[16:59] Because that's what's going to happen all this week. Invite your friends Sunday. Friends Day should be every Sunday. We should invite who we know. Invite our friends. Invite our family. Will you begin today?
[17:12] Or are you going to wait until maybe they're on their deathbed? And you're going to call the pastor and say, Pastor, can you come share the gospel? Can you come talk to them? Or are you going to wait and say, Well, when I'm done with my education, I'll give my life to Christ.
[17:26] When I'm done paying my house off, man, I'll give my life to Christ then. When are you going to start? Because if you wait too late, your life's going to be over. And you're going to have nothing to show for it.
[17:37] I'm going to have a little while.