Message today is going to be how to evangelize.
How to evangelize.
Straight to the point, right?
1 Thessalonians 2 verse 4 says,
!
What is it? It's the gospel.
And so he says we speak not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.
I would say, this might be a strong statement, but I'm going to say it,
that it's Christian malpractice to not be good at evangelism.
To not have a level of competence in evangelism.
Think of all the things you could be good at.
As Christians, why in the world is it so acceptable to not evangelize?
Or to not even be confident to evangelize?
As Christians, that is like a travesty.
To say the world is dying.
The world is justly under the wrath of God.
The world has no hope apart from Christ.
The world is destined for eternal punishment and wrath.
And we have the good news that when believed would save them from their sins,
absorb the wrath of God, and set them on a course for eternal life with Jesus.
We have that message.
To not preach that message.
To not take the time as Christians to be competent in it.
To be good at it.
To be confident in it.
Can you think of anything that would be more of a travesty as Christians?
And I don't think we think enough about that.
And we all think about being good at things, right?
I mean, who doesn't try?
There's probably not one person in this room who hasn't spent time in their life
trying to excel at some particular area of life.
Okay, could be at your job.
Could be as a parent.
Could be as a husband or a wife.
Could be just at a particular skill.
Maybe barbecuing.
I don't know.
Could be fantasy football, for crying out loud.
People get good at stuff.
But for Christians to not be good at evangelizing.
Heaven forbid we put all this time on being good at all these other things
and we don't know how to preach the gospel.
We don't know how to evangelize people.
Of all things, get this.
We must.
So, before we get into this on the how-to,
I just want to throw out a few false assumptions that come with this.
Number one, sometimes the reason we don't really spend a lot of time on this
is because we think someone else will reach people.
I don't have to reach them.
Someone else will do it.
Well, what if you're the only Christian that somebody knows?
Right?
What if you're the only Christian that someone knows?
What if you're the one that God wants to use to speak to people?
We can't just assume someone else will reach them.
We have to be missionally intentional.
We have to assume that whenever we meet new people,
that, hey, they might not be Christians.
They might need to hear the gospel.
Okay?
Number two, a false assumption is,
and a reason to maybe not preach the gospel is,
they're already Christians.
Which 65% of America says, hey, I'm a Christian.
So it's like, man, really?
I mean, most people are Christians anyways.
It's not like I really need to preach the gospel that much.
Because if 65% of people are Christians, we're mostly good.
But listen, 65% of America is not Christian.
Okay?
Because when they ask those Christians,
you've heard me say this before,
but I want to keep drilling it into our heads.
When they ask them, do you believe that Jesus is the only way?
Do you believe that Jesus is God?
Do you believe that the Bible is the word of God?
They're saying no to those things.
90% of those, 65% of the population,
90% of those Christians are saying that they don't believe that.
Well, you just narrowed it down quite a bit.
If that's true,
then you're saying 90% of professing Christians
aren't actually Christians.
You can't be a Christian and not believe Jesus is God.
You can't be a Christian and believe that Jesus isn't the only way.
Do you understand what I'm saying here?
So if someone says they're a Christian,
don't just be, oh, thank God they're a Christian.
I don't need to preach the gospel to them.
Well, what if they're not?
What if they're a Christian in name only?
Look at their fruit.
Talk to them.
Ask questions.
Number three,
I just need to invite them to church.
I mean, I don't need to talk to them about the gospel.
I just need to get them in the doors, right?
Let the paid professional do that.
That's not my job.
That's what we got pastors for, isn't it?
Our job is just to invite people to church.
As if like, you know,
there's so many professing Christians
who think that evangelism was replaced
with church service invitations.
And yet I don't see that anywhere in the Bible.
It's like, go into all the world
and invite them to come to church
so a paid professional can preach to them.
Is that what Jesus said?
No.
He said, go into all the world and make disciples.
Okay?
Preach the gospel in season and out of season.
Right?
Now, if someone hears the gospel at a church service,
praise God.
I rejoice in that, right?
But our job isn't just to get people to church services
to hear the gospel.
What do they need a church service for?
They got you.
If you're a Christian,
they can hear the gospel through you.
Right?
Number four,
because I've always done it
or seen it done this way,
this way is the best.
Okay?
Sometimes we've seen ways of evangelism
that aren't the best
and we should challenge our creed
and determine whether or not
that's really the truth
according to the word of God.
We should dive into that.
We should have conversations with people.
And then number five,
I just need to wait for opportunities
to come to me.
Well, how about making opportunities?
Do we always have to just wait
until someone comes up to us and says,
what must I do to be saved?
I don't know.
How many of you have had that happen pretty often?
I think I've had that happen once in my life.
It did actually happen once.
That's a pretty rare thing, though.
I mean, I'm 46 years old.
If I only waited for people to do that,
I would be barely preaching the gospel at all.
Okay?
We have to make opportunities.
So these are assumptions that can get in the way
and I don't want those to get in the way
as I talk about the rest.
So I throw those out there.
So let's jump into it.
How do we evangelize?
Number one, okay?
And some of these are going to sound
like I'm Captain Obvious.
That's okay.
Like, it's good to just say these things out loud.
Number one, how do we evangelize?
Get in front of lost people.
You can't evangelize a lost person
until you are in front of a lost person.
And you might say, well, duh.
But I'm saying, no.
We have to make effort.
We have to be strategic.
We have to plan.
We plan so many things in our life.
How often do we plan to get in front of lost people?
And not just so we can be their friends
and befriend them to hell,
but so that we can preach the gospel.
Okay?
Listen to the language of the New Testament.
Great Commission, Matthew 28.
What does he say?
He says, go.
Okay, this involves moving from one place
and going to another.
Going to all nations to make disciples.
Okay?
Luke 19, verse 10.
Jesus says the Son of Man came to seek and to save.
That also implies you're going.
It implies you're looking.
Right?
And then Matthew 4, 19,
when Jesus reached out to his disciples and said,
follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
Okay?
So go seek fish.
All of those involve taking action,
going to a place, you know,
no one's ever been sitting in the living room
and like, what are you doing?
They're like, I'm fishing.
They're like, well, don't you're not?
They're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm just waiting for him to come.
I'm waiting for him to come.
You know?
Like, no, you have to go where the fish are.
Like, no one fishes on dry land.
You go to the water
because that's where the fish are.
No one, if we want to reach lost people,
we have to go to the water where they're at,
wherever they might be.
We might have to go to specific places
we wouldn't normally go.
There are multiple,
the majority of lost people.
They will never set foot in a church
in their lost state.
So we can't just say, well,
that's the only place I reach lost people
is in a church building.
No.
Go where they are.
And Jesus did this.
Go.
Seek.
Fish.
Go.
Seek fish.
Go.
Seek fish.
This should be the pattern
of a Christian's life.
Okay?
Which means we,
and some of you are like,
man, I can't add more things into my life.
Yeah.
A lot of that is just starting
with the existing people and places.
Who am I already in contact with?
What am I already doing?
Where am I already spending my time?
And how can I use more gospel intentionality
in those places?
In my workplace?
In my family?
In my neighborhood?
On my kids' sports team?
Whatever it may be, right?
Being more intentional in those things.
Secondly, what are the new people and places?
Where can I go and reach new people and places?
Um, you know, what are those places?
Where can I meet strangers?
Friends, family, coworkers, neighbors,
colleges, restaurants, stores, grocery stores,
coffee shops, barbers, hairstylists, doctors,
chiropractors, mechanics, parks, schools,
bars, sports teams, nursing homes.
Is there, we could go all these places.
They say, well, I'm not going to them now.
Well, pick one.
Like, aim for something.
Go somewhere.
But we got to get out there
and be where lost people are at.
And be intentional.
This can also include doing certain things
that we can do to attract people,
but it doesn't necessarily need to be in a church building.
It can be in homes just like it was for Jesus
on multiple occasions and the disciples.
All kinds of just sharing meals together,
doing holiday parties together,
all kinds of things like that.
Meeting in public and in homes.
And we should be doing that together
as much as possible.
In Luke 10, when Jesus sent out the disciples,
he sent them out two by two.
Okay?
Two by two in every town and place
where he's about to go.
He sent them.
Go.
Go find lost people.
Get in front of lost people.
And you might say, well, okay,
of all that, what's the best means?
1 Corinthians 9, 19 to 23 says,
though I'm free from all,
I have made myself a servant to all,
that I might win more of them.
To the Jews,
I became as a Jew,
in order to win Jews.
To those under the law,
I became as one under the law,
though not being myself under the law,
that I might win those under the law.
To those outside the law,
I became as one outside the law,
not being outside the law of God,
but under the law of Christ,
that I might win those outside the law.
To the weak,
I became weak, that I might win the weak. I become all things to all people, that by all means,
I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its
blessing. So what should we become? All things. To what people? All people. By what means? All means.
Why? That we might win some for the sake of the gospel. Okay? It's just getting in front of lost
people by any means in preaching the gospel. And I think it would be good for us to think,
how often is this on my radar when I'm going through my day? I was convicted by this the other
day. I was so kind of locked into my day, wasn't paying attention. And then I got in my car, I'm
like, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize who was in front of me. These were lost people I was
interacting, and I was just oblivious. I was so locked into what I had to do that day,
what I had going on, which is another moment being locked into what you need to get locked
in on the day. But being sensitive to the fact that we're interacting with unbelievers all the time,
that those people we're interacting with, those people don't know Jesus. Those people are destined
for eternal punishment apart from the saving power of Jesus. And so we need to get in front of them.
Okay? We need to get in front of them. So we should be, as a church, we shouldn't just be waiting for
those opportunities. A church, all the more so a church plant, should be strategically looking for
opportunities to get in front of lost people, as much as possible, by any means. Okay? Once we get in
front of lost people, what do we do? Number two, find out what they believe. Become a good question
asker. Get them talking. Listen to them. Identify their gods. Identify if they're proud or humble.
Okay? Matthew 12, 34 in the CSB says, the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
So often, when you get in front of a lost person and you're thinking, I don't know what to say,
start by asking questions. When I think this is true, just getting in front of Christians too. So
many times in counseling, I don't know what to say at first. So I just start asking questions. As the
mouth speaks, things start to come out. What they believe in. What they're hoping in. And if you ask
good questions, you start to see a lot of things. And the Holy Spirit will make clear what direction
you're to take. Whether it's a lost person, you're trying to counsel a Christian. But in this particular
case, we're talking about unbelievers. Ask questions. Get them talking. Hey, like, what are some
questions you can ask? You can say, hey, are you a Christian? But then if they say yes, don't be like,
oh, good. And then move on. A great question after that is, oh, great. Tell me, how did you become a
Christian? And you could really tell a lot about what they believe when they answer that question.
You know, I've asked that question before and my eyes probably get kind of big. So I'm thinking,
wait, what? That's not how you become a Christian. I don't know. That's not how you become
much of anything. So I don't know where you got that from. But so that's just a great question to
ask. And, you know, you're genuinely asking. But obviously you're asking because you don't know for
sure that they are just because they profess to be. So you're saying, hey, how did you become a
Christian? And then you might have to do some correction and just say, hey, that's actually not
what the Bible says. Can I tell you what the Bible actually teaches about this? You could speak the
truth to that. Okay. Another great question is, are you a man or woman of faith?
Or what do you believe? You know, which is essentially asking, what is your gospel? Like,
what's the gospel you believe? But you say, what do you believe? You could say, what do you believe
about sin? What do you believe about death? What do you believe about heaven or hell? What do you
believe about God, spiritual things? Like, what do you believe? You could ask, do you believe that Jesus
literally rose from the dead? Because that's a big deal, right? If they don't believe that Jesus rose from
the dead, we got a problem. We got a big problem. A lot of times people are going through hard
situations. A question I love to ask people is, when they're going through a hard situation,
they start sharing it. I love to ask them about it and then ask them, how are you dealing with that?
Like, that's a heavy load. You know, a lot of people collapse under something like that.
How, what, like, what are you looking to? How are you doing that? And that's another way to just
offer up, like, are you a person of faith? Like, how are you dealing with this difficult situation in
your life? You can also bring up current events, especially right now. Like, you can, you can ask
about things related to morality and ask what they think. Christian brother the other day went to the
UMKC campus and was doing evangelism with another guy. And one of the things he was just asking, he
asked a couple people was, hey, what do you think about that Charlie, the Charlie Kirk shooting? And
people were more than willing to talk about it, right? Obviously, everybody's talking about it
anyway, so it's not like that's a weird thing to ask. And just ask. And then from that conversation,
they were able to share the gospel. They went into the campus for three, for one hour, met three people
and preached the gospel to three different people, got one of their phone numbers to possibly connect
after that. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that can happen. But it just happened by asking simple
questions and introducing themselves to strangers. Okay. So ask questions, find out what people believe.
Number three, preach the gospel. We got to give them a hearing, right? Romans 10, 17 says, faith comes
from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. How are people going to get faith? They got to hear.
They got to hear the gospel. And just know, it's only our job to give them the hearing. It's not our job
to save them. Romans 10, 14 says, how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how
are they to hear without someone preaching? Okay. We got to preach the gospel. It's so easy in our fear of
man to just love people, befriend people, be relational with people. You don't want to love someone to hell.
They have to hear the gospel. Okay. It's not true that you preach the gospel always and when necessary,
use words. It's always necessary to use words. That's what the Bible teaches. It's always necessary
to use words. They can't have faith unless they hear. And how can they hear unless someone preaches
words? This is why, again, you got to know what to say. Like you got to be competent in the gospel.
There's no excuse for someone who's been a Christian for a long time, not knowing how to preach the
gospel. If anything, you don't know, find out how. Study it. Go to good people who've taught the
gospel really well. Ask people you know and trust. Get in the scriptures and study the gospel.
Everything, every verse related to the gospel. Memorize verses related to the gospel.
Get good at preaching the gospel because this is how people get faith.
2 Timothy 4, 2 says, be ready in season and out of season. Preach the word.
In season and out of season. Okay? This means that you can't just do it when you feel like it.
It can't just be when it's easy. It's got to be when it's hard too. And you got to know that people
aren't always going to like it. Colossians 4, 3 to 4, Paul says, pray also for us that God may open to
us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I'm in prison, that I may
make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Are you able to make the gospel clear to people?
If you're not, do what Paul did. Pray. Pray that you would be able to make the gospel clear.
Before you're talking to someone, pray that you'll do that. When you're not talking about that, pray for
yourself and pray for our whole church that we would be people that make it clear to people what the
gospel is. Okay? That we could declare the mystery of Christ and make it clear because he says, this is
how I ought to speak. It should be clear. If there's one thing and one thing alone that Christians should
be clear on, it should be the gospel. We could disagree about different things. We could disagree
about methods of all kinds of things in Christianity, but there's one thing we should agree on. It is the
gospel. It should be clear. It should be something we're all agreed on and that we can do with authority,
with confidence, with competence, with power. Okay? So how do we do that? How do we, how do we preach the
gospel? Number four, we got to start with the problem, the bad news. Okay? Everybody's got a five-fold
problem. Number one, sin. Okay? Sin, sin leads to death. The wages of sin is death. So all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. Okay? When we die, we face judgment. Okay? And when we face
judgment, the wrath of God is on us so that we, the only just punishment for our sin, our sin against the
holy God is eternal punishment. This is the problem. You can't, you don't want to give solutions
to a problem that people don't think they have. You don't want to give solutions to a problem that
people don't think they have. We have to also be able to preach the problem. We all have a sin
problem. Okay? We all have, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All have sinned.
This is a universal problem. We should use the language of we and all. We have all sinned. It's not
just you that I'm preaching to. It's all of us. We've all sinned. We've all fallen short of the glory
of God. There's no one who's good, not even one. This is what it says, right? We've all sinned.
So there's a sin problem. People need to know that. Some people are very self-righteous. Some people
think they're fine. Some people think, as long as I'm better than other people, I'm okay. And we need
to let people know that, no, we're, if you've broken one law, you've broken them all. We need to let
people know that, again, these are scriptures I'm quoting, right? We need to let these people know
that they have a problem of sin and it's universal. Hebrews 9, 27 says, it's appointed for man to die
once and after that comes judgment. Okay? There's a judgment to come. We should preach that. Hey,
listen, you're going to die and you're going to stand before God. What will be your hope? What are you
standing in? You standing in your self-righteousness? Well, the Bible says your righteousness is disgusting.
It's gross. What an affront to a holy God to think that unholy people could be righteous enough to earn
God's mercy and forgiveness. No way. No way. They need a mediator. They need someone to satisfy the
wrath of God. Someone else has got to do it. John 3, 36 says, whoever believes in the Son has eternal
life. Whoever does not obey, the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. The
wrath of God remains on him. The problem isn't, who's the problem with? It's with God. They have a sin
problem with God where the wrath of God remains on them. And apart from Christ, there's no hope.
Matthew 25, 46 talks about people going away into eternal punishment. Eternal punishment.
Right? That's a scriptural phrase. There is a punishment that's eternal. Everyone likes to
talk about eternal life, but you know what makes eternal life so great is that the alternative is
eternal punishment. And when people might say, well, that seems a little overkill, like my short little
life, I'm going to have eternal punishment, even though I only lived, let's say I lived 70, 80 years in
this life. For that 70, 80 years, I'm going to get eternal punishment. What are you going to do to
explain that? Why would that be just? Is God fair or is he unjust? God is just because he is infinitely
holy, because there's no end to his holiness. His holiness is so far above us, so far beyond us,
that makes any sin against a holy God infinitely wicked. There's no end to the wickedness of our sin
if there's no end to the holiness of God. Okay? Therefore, the only just punishment for our sin
would be eternal punishment, because our sin is that bad. One of the problems with people not being
interested in the gospel is they think their sin is not that bad. We need to be able to explain the
utter wickedness of sin. We need to be able to explain how big of a problem it is. For most people,
they know they have sin, but they think it's a small problem. That's the problem. Okay? They need
to see that it's a big problem. And another thing that goes with this is when you're giving the bad
news, you have to understand John 7, 7. Jesus said, the world hates me because I testify about it that
its works are evil. The world hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. Why does the
world not hate us? Well, sometimes it's because we're not willing to tell them that their works
are evil. Maybe we're just giving them the good news and not the bad news, and the good news has
no power. Maybe we're too afraid to tell them that they're sinners. Maybe we're too afraid to tell them
that the wrath of God remains on them. Maybe we're too afraid to tell them that their lifestyle is sin,
that greed is a sin, that homosexuality is a sin, that selfishness is a sin, that hating your father
and mother is murder. Like, maybe we're too afraid to say those things. You better believe the world
will hate us. The world will persecute us. He promised, if they hated me, if they hate you,
they hated me first, he said. All right? And the reason they hated Jesus is because he told them
that their deeds were wicked. And guess what? This has never stopped. The reason people hate Christians,
the reason people are killed for their faith all over the world to this day, are because they tell
unbelievers that their works are evil. In order to give the good news, you have to first tell them,
your works are evil. Your works are evil. I don't care how good of a person it seemed like you were.
If you were a good person, your good works are evil too. Oh boy. That'll really hack someone off
right there. You're telling me even my good works are evil? Yes. It's a vain attempt at getting,
being right with God apart from Christ. It's a self-exalting worship of self to say,
I can be right with God without God. It's basically saying I'm God. Okay? People will be mad about that.
If you've never experienced someone being mad, maybe you're not really preaching the bad news. We must.
We must tell people that their deeds are evil, which lays the groundwork for number five. We give them
the solution to their problem. We give them the solution to the bad news that they have. It's the
good news. We speak about grace through faith. So yes, even though all these things are true,
that grace comes through faith in Jesus and all your sins are covered. He loves you for who you are,
not who you should because nobody is as they should be. So God gives you his undeserved forgiving love
in Christ Jesus so that your sins could be covered, washed clean. They could be atoned for. The problem
of sin is that sin needs to be atoned for. It needs to be paid for. No good works can pay for it, but there
is good news. There is a way for your sins to be paid for. The only way for them to be paid for is if
someone else pays for them. And the only way he could pay for them is if he paid for them with the
perfect sacrifice. He had to be a sinless substitute to endure the wrath of God in our place.
And thanks be to God in Christ Jesus, we have that. The good news is there is a sinless substitutionary
atonement in Christ that absorbs the wrath of God and gives us eternal life and we trust in him.
Then it's as if what he did is now accredited to our account. His grade is put on our report card.
We got a failing grade, but we all, those who trust in Jesus get the perfect record of Jesus imputed to
us, the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, which means we're forgiven, which means our sins are
remembered no more, which means there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
This is good news for those who are riddled with sin and are constantly feeling shame as if there's
nothing they could do to get out of it. The truth is there is nothing they can do to get out of it in
and of themselves, but Jesus Christ pays the price for our sin so that our sins could be washed clean
as white as snow and that we could be forgiven, absolved. There is no longer anything that stands
against us. There's no issue between God and man anymore because of the mediator, the man Christ Jesus
stood in our place and reconciled us to God made us right. Okay. We were enemies and now he made us
right. And he didn't just make it so that, okay, you're just good enough. He also adopted us and gave
us the full rights of sons, the full rights of sons, the right to be called children of God.
That's good news. He's not just seeing as this tolerable. It's not like, okay, now you can get in,
but God still kind of hates you because you're kind of a screw up. No, it's that we're washed,
clean, absolved, adopted into his family. Just like the prodigal son, the shame is taken on the
father. He runs to him, kills the fattened calf and says, my son who was lost is found.
And we receive that through faith. That's the good news that he doesn't treat us as our sins deserve,
but adopts us into his family, reconciles us in our enemy state and makes us a child of God.
He redeems us. He justifies us so that it's just as if we had not sinned. The father looks on us and
he sees the substitutionary atonement of the son. And what he sees is a clean and spotless person,
washed clean by the blood of the lamb. No longer, uh, any accusations that can stick. We have been
justified. It's if we, it's just as if we had not sinned. The righteousness of God, of God,
of G in Jesus is imputed to us and we are made righteous. Not because of our own righteousness,
despite our own unrighteousness and our own attempts at self-righteousness, the righteousness
of Christ is imputed to us through the son because of the resurrection. This means we're free.
We're no longer, uh, under the dominion of sin. Like Seth was sharing during, during the Lord's
table. Okay. He saves us. It's a threefold salvation. We've been saved from the penalty
of sin. We're being saved from the power of sin and we will be saved from the presence of sin.
This is all good news to be saved from the penalty of sin, to be being saved from the power of sin.
The power of sin shall no longer reign over you. We tell people, you know how you feel like no matter
how hard you try, you can't stop sinning. I got good news for you in Christ Jesus. The power of sin
is canceled and broken and you are no longer in bondage to sin. Sin shall no longer rule over you,
but Jesus comes inside and lives in you and exercises his will through you. And you're no longer
under the dominion and the rule of sin. You're free and your shame is taken away. Your shame was
taken up on the cross. Jesus took your shame. This means we're made new. Bible says, calls it being
born again, born again to new life. The old is gone. The new has come. The old person, the old way of
thinking, the old man, it's, we are made new. Wash clean. I mean, you could, that's just a little bit.
That's just a little bit. You keep going. I mean, keep going. There's just so many good implications
of the gospel. And I think, man, I really got this gospel thing down. Really? There's a lot more.
Like you can never stop studying the gospel and think, oh, there's another good part about the gospel.
I'm going to use that to reach people. There's another good part of the gospel.
There's another good verse that describes another good part of the gospel. It's like this never ending
well of awesomeness. That's what the gospel is. And we have, if we aren't enjoying it ourselves,
preaching it to ourselves and preaching it to one another, there ain't no way we're going to preach
it to the lost. And you're not going to share something you're not enjoying yourself. And you're
not going to share something you only have enjoyed 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago, but you're
not presently enjoying now. The degree that you're presently enjoying it now will cause something to
well up within your soul to want to share it with other people now. So we have to know the gospel and
enjoy the gospel and give people the solution and avoid incorrect statements like, hey, just ask Jesus
into your heart. There's not going to find that in the Bible. Just asking people Jesus in your heart.
There's a lot of people who've asked Jesus into their heart and Jesus didn't come in.
Because you have to believe. You have to believe that he's God. You have to believe that he's Lord.
And don't say things like making Jesus Lord either. You can't make Jesus anything. He is who he is,
and he is who he is before you were. And he always will be. Even after you're gone. God is who he is.
You don't make him anything. You just either believe he is who he is or you don't. What is the work of God?
John 6, 29. This is the work of God that you believe in the one whom he sent. Okay. This is the work of God
to believe. Our job is to point people to believe. Okay. This is the difference. There are people who
don't believe that Jesus is God. There are people who do. Okay. We have to proclaim the gospel of God.
And Jesus, when he proclaimed the gospel of God, he said, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and
believe the gospel. So it's repent and believe. Turn from your sin. Turn from all the things you were,
the false gods you were trusting in and trust in Jesus. Believe that he is God. Believe
that he is your only hope. Believe that he is the only way. And it must be that, that Jesus is the
only way. You can't just say, well, they have faith. So what? The devil has faith. Right? Who do they have
faith in and what do they have faith in? Well, I believe in Jesus. So what? The devil has faith in
Jesus. He believes in Jesus. Do you believe the right thing about Jesus? Do you believe that he is who he
says he is? Do you believe he's the way, the truth, and the life? Do you believe he's Lord? Do you believe
he's God? And do you believe it not just with your mouth, but it shows forth in your life in such a way
that by believing he's God, you show that you believe that he's God by obeying him? John 14, 6 says,
I'm the way, the truth, and life. No one comes to the Father except through me. There's no other way.
People say to you, well, I believe that all religions lead to God. Well, what if one of those
religions says there's only one way, then they can't all lead to God, the same God? Because one
of them is very narrow, and the other one are universal. So either that one is wrong and all
the rest are right, or he's right and all the rest are wrong. Well, the Bible says he is the,
there's no one comes to the Father except through him. It says in Acts 4, 12, there is salvation in no
one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
In 1 Timothy 2, 5, it says there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
It's not enough for people just to say they believe. Who do they believe in? What do they believe in?
There are many people who will spend eternity in hell who said that they believed, but they did not
believe in Jesus, that he is God, that he rose from the dead, that he's their only hope. If we don't
believe in Jesus, you don't have saving. This is why the Bible talks about not just faith, but saving
faith. James talks about a kind of faith that doesn't save, and a kind of faith that does save.
So we're not just looking for the presence of faith, it has to be saving faith. If it's not saving faith,
it's not the right kind of faith. Make no mistake, there is another kind of faith, but it's not saving
faith. We have to believe that Jesus is the only way. It has to be heart and mouth. Some people say it
with their mouth, but do they believe it in their heart? And again, that will be shown. Romans 10,
9 to 10 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Notice that, that you believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead. I've heard of people asking Jesus in their heart that don't believe that Jesus
really rose from the dead. That's a problem. That's a problem. If you believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. It doesn't say if you ask Jesus into your heart,
no matter what you believe, you'll be saved. No. It says that you believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified,
and with the mouth one confesses, and is saved. So we got to get this right. We have to know what it is,
the true gospel. We don't want to be sloppy with this and preach things that aren't true. We have
to point people to Jesus. And the thing that people needed to believe when he was on this earth,
the same thing they believe now. What was the problem back then? People just thought he was
another guy. They just thought he was a prophet. Some people didn't even think he was that.
Okay. But the problem and the obstacle for most people, including his own family,
was believing whether he was God. Because if he's God, it changes everything. And if he's not God,
then he can't save you. It's like people who say that they believe that, yeah, so-and-so believes
that God's their savior. He just hasn't made him Lord yet. It's like, what? How can he save you if
he's not Lord? How can he save you if he's not God? The only person who could ever save you is God alone.
If he's not God, he sure didn't save you. He can't. If he's not God, then we have no hope.
If the man Christ Jesus, in claiming he was God, if that wasn't true and he was just a man,
then we're all doomed. The only hope we have is that he was God, is God, because him being God means
that he can save us. He's the only one who has the authority. He's the only one who lived a perfect
life. He's the only one who paid the price, fulfilled the atoning work of the cross, and then
rose from the dead. If he did not raise from the dead, then we are all still in our sins.
So it's got to believe in the resurrection. When people say, oh, I believe in Jesus, but I don't
believe he rose from the dead. It's like, whoa, what? No, that's not saving faith. You have to believe
that he rose from the dead. Number six, last one, be bold. We got to be bold. What did they say about
the disciples when they looked at him and said, whoa, these guys are bold? They took note that they
had been with Jesus. They were uneducated men. You might say, well, I'm not educated. You don't have
to be educated to be bold. You just need to have been with Jesus and have the Holy Spirit. Okay?
Acts 1.8 says, you will receive the power. You receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
When the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we'll be his witnesses. We'll be his witnesses. And so we need
to continually be praying, God, fill me up. I want to be filled. I want to preach the gospel in the
power of the Holy Spirit. I don't want to just try to convince people's minds.
It's not our job to save people. It's God's job. And that's a super freeing thing. Okay?
We need the Holy Spirit. Acts 4.31 says, when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered
together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And then what was the result?
They continued to speak the word of God with boldness. We need to be filled with the Spirit
so that we continue to speak the word of God with boldness. Well, weren't these guys already
filled with the Spirit? Why would they have to be filled again? These are the same people that got
filled earlier. They got filled again. We need to be continually filled with the Spirit so that we
might speak the word of God with boldness. Do you believe that God wants to give you boldness to
preach his word and to speak the gospel? Do you believe that he can? Do you believe he can fill you and
cause you, even if you're a timid person, even if you're someone who has a hard time with your speech,
even if you're someone who's not typically one who's confident in speech, do you believe the Holy
Spirit can make the timid confident? The Bible says the righteous are as bold as lions. Do you believe
that you can be as bold as a lion? Are you righteous? Then of course you can be as bold as a lion. The
Bible says it. Do we have that kind of boldness? It comes from the Holy Spirit. It also comes from
knowing that God is the one who does the saving. Romans 9.16 says it depends not on human will or
exertion, but on God who has mercy. When you're trying to evangelize someone, do you think it's on
you? Do you think it's on you to do everything perfect? Do you think it's on you to make sure
that they get saved and you talk them into it? No. It's our job to give them a hearing. It's God's job
to give them a saving. Right? We give them the hearing. God does the saving. 1 Corinthians 3.6-7,
Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither who plants nor he waters
is anything, but only God who gives the growth. Okay? I love Isaiah 63 verse 1. God is mighty to save.
The devil will tempt you when you get in front of a lost person to think that God is not mighty to
save. It's so important for us when we get in front of lost people to think, I am holding the most
powerful message on the planet. My God is mighty to save. When I speak the words of life, God saves
people. God saves people. I don't save people. It's not my job to save people. It's not my job to
convert people. That is God's job. It's my job to give them a hearing. There's a certain level of
freedom in evangelism when you know, I don't save anybody. God does. And he doesn't, he doesn't just
do it sometimes and kind of, like he's mighty to. He's mighty to save. Yes, he doesn't do it every time,
but man, we have to trust that he is mighty to do it. Second Timothy 1.12 says, I'm not ashamed
for I know whom I have believed. When we know our God, we're not ashamed of him. And I fear that
maybe sometimes the reason we're not bold is because a subtle ashamedness comes in there. Like,
do I really have to tell them that their deeds are evil? Do I really have to tell them that they're in
sin? I'm kind of embarrassed by that. I mean, I thought Jesus was all about love. Like, do I really have
to tell them that what they do is wrong? Yes. And the only way we can do that is when we know the God
who did the same thing to us and loved us in the midst of our sin, died for us in the midst of our
sin. He didn't wait for us to be good, to get good so we could get God. He gave us his mercy and grace
while we were yet sinners. He died for us. And that causes us to be compelled to speak to other sinners
that God, although they are wicked and evil in their works, God loved them in the midst of their
sin and died for them while they were yet sinners. And that's good news. That causes us to not be
ashamed. The other thing that causes us to not be ashamed is Romans 1.16. I'm not ashamed of the
gospel for it is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. It's the power of God. Sometimes
we feel like, well, I can't share the gospel because I just don't know how to do it powerfully.
You don't have to. The gospel is power. Lord, make it powerful. Too late. Already did. You don't have
to pray that. It's always powerful. The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of those who believe.
Like, hey, if I evangelize people, wouldn't it be awesome if there was some like powerful thing I
could like bring with me that would get people saved? Yes. It's the gospel. It is the power of God.
For what? For the salvation of those who believe. That's what it's for. It's potent power for belief.
That's what the gospel is. When you present that, do you believe that? It causes you to be unashamed
and know there's nothing that can stand in the way of this. And you can look at me and you think,
you are the last person on earth who I thought could be saved. I was convicted of this the other
day. I was watching a video of a woman. She had, uh, she had, uh, she just, uh, had the short purple
hair, looked really angry, had tattoos all over herself. And she was a really angry person. And I
saw a video of someone, uh, going up to her, preaching the gospel to her. She was narrating this
video and she was talking about how much she hated God and how God saved her because somebody preached
for the gospel. And I was immediately convicted and just saw how even, uh, her whole demeanor changed,
her whole appearance changed over time. And she just became a new, she was a new creation. Totally.
And I think that there's sometimes there's people that I see with my eyes that I think,
you know what? They're probably not going to get saved. They're probably not going to want to hear
what I have to say. They're probably going to be pretty angry if I share it to them. I mean,
it's almost like, can you imagine like going up to someone who was someone who was killing Christians
and holding coats for people while they stone Christians and thinking that guy's probably not
going to get saved. He's a terrorist. How in the world could he get saved? And then he goes and
writes half the new Testament. You know what I'm saying? Like it's, it's, we can't look at people's
external appearance. You can't look at even their attitude or even their hatred towards God and
their outspokenness in hating God on their social media posts, or they're in their conversations with
us. We have to look at the God who saves and say, God, you're mighty to save anybody, no matter where
they are. And maybe the reason they're not saved yet is just because they haven't had a hearing.
Like, well, surely they had a hearing because they really hate God. Maybe they haven't.
I wouldn't assume it. What if someone came to them and lovingly shared the gospel with them?
Yes. Told them that their deeds were evil, but then they told them the good news.
And you guys say, well, that's not going to work. They hate God. Guys, it's the power of God.
Do you realize the most God hating person on planet earth can hear the gospel? And if God opens their
eyes, there's nothing they can do to resist it. That power just busts through and breaks through all
their resistance and all their hatred and all the things that they put up against God. And he saves
people. He's mighty to save. Do we believe that we have that potent of a message and we're giving
it to people? If we do, cause us to not be ashamed. I wrap up with two verses. 1 Corinthians 9, 16 says,
if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting, for necessity is laid it upon me.
Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. Has necessity
been laid upon you to preach the gospel? Are you saying, I got to get in front of lost people?
I got to talk to them. I got to give them the bad news. I got to give them the good news and I got
to do a bowl. Or are you saying, eh, it's not that big of a deal. Kind of like my comfortable little
Christian pocket of society where my kids get to grow up together and enjoy a good life together.
I don't want to have anybody hating me. I don't want to have anybody being violent against me.
I don't want anybody getting mad at me. I just want to enjoy Christianity with a group of people
that are nice that my kids can grow up with and I can live a selfish, comfortable life.
God help us from that life. May the God who saves put the necessity of preaching the gospel on each
and every one of us so that we could all say, woe to me if I don't preach the gospel.
Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. Paul said it best in Acts 20, 24. He said,
I do not account my life of any value nor is precious to myself. If only I may finish my course
in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Amen. Amen. Let's stand.
Amen.