Who would be willing to give up their freedom to try and save
other people? That's exactly what Harriet
Tubman did. Maybe you're familiar with the
story of Harriet Tubman. She was born into slavery in
1822, and from a young age she saw the horrors of slavery.
She herself was forced into physical manual labor and often
times was beaten even for the slightest mistake.
At the age of 27, she risked her own life for freedom to escape
slavery, and she was able to do so through a network using the
Underground Railroad. And once she reached
Pennsylvania, which was a Free State, she was free.
Free from the pain and the torture of slavery, free from
all the work and all of the bad conditions there, she was free
to live her own life. So what did Harriet Tubman do
with her freedom? She gave her freedom to go back
to try to save others. She dedicated her life sensing
the Lord calling her to use her life to save other people.
And a year after escaping, she made her first trip back to the
camp where she was to save her family.
And over the next 10 years, she would make at least 13 trips and
save up to 70 slaves for freedom using the Underground Railroad.
Her journey was incredibly dangerous each and every time
she made that decision to go back.
But she gave up her freedom, and she willingly risked her own
life to save others. As believers who have placed our
faith and our hope and our trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and
Savior, we are free. We are free from the power of
sin in our lives. We're free from the power of
death over us. Praise God, we are free in
Christ. So what should we do with our
freedom? Should we as as Harriet had the
option of living her life, now her freedom for herself?
Or should we live our lives for a higher calling?
Is there a higher purpose for us to use our freedom?
This morning we're going to see that we are free, but we should
use that freedom not for our own pleasure, not for our own
satisfaction, but in Christ we are free to serve.
We should strive to use our freedom to serve others.
This is how we live strategically for the sake of
the gospel. If you will, open up your Bibles
with me to 1st Corinthians Chapter 9, verses 19 through 27.
First Corinthians chapter 919 through 27.
I'm reading out of the ESV version if you are using your
phone or tablet or anything. The past few chapters Paul has
been emphasizing, if you've been with us for a time, you've heard
a few sermons on this text. If you if you've missed these
sermons, it'd be great to go back and hear.
But over the past few chapters, Paul has been talking about the
freedom that we have in Christ, but how we are to use that
freedom for other people. Pastor Jonah talked about how we
should be free using our freedom in our knowledge to build others
up. Last week, Pastor Jake talked
about how we can use our freedom with our wealth and our
resources and our, the money that we have for the for the to
be generous and to to use it for other people.
And this week we're going to see how Paul instructs us to use our
freedom to serve others in order to win souls to Jesus Christ.
This morning we are going to see how we can cultivate a heart for
winning souls. Master the art of winning souls
and chart a plan for winning souls.
So I'll read First Corinthians Chapter 9, verses 19 through 27.
For though I am 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 the 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 have 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 blessings.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only
one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.
Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.
They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an
imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly, I do
not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and I
keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I
myself should be disqualified. Let's bow for a word of prayer.
Father, we thank You for Your Word to us this morning, and we
recognize that in our own flesh we cannot understand Your Word
and how to apply it to our lives.
And so this morning we ask for the illumination of Your Holy
Spirit to open our eyes to Your Word, that You would give us
ears to hear and eyes to see how we can apply Your Word to our
lives That mean we may walk in it and find the joy that comes
with obeying Your Word. Knowing that Your commands are
not burdensome but joyful. That Your yoke is easy and Your
burden is light. Would you turn our hearts to
long to be obedient to You and Your Word?
In Jesus name we ask, Amen. As believers who have
experienced the freedom of Christ, the first thing we need
to do is we need to cultivate a heart for winning souls.
So before we can talk about how we can live strategically and
intentionally for the sake of the gospel, we first need to
cultivate a heart that wants other people to be saved.
Until we do, until we desire lost people to come to Christ,
we are not going to sacrifice our freedom for them.
In verse 19 of our passage today, Paul says, For though I
am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I
might win more of them. Paul and his Jewish tradition
had been enslaved to these legalistic Jewish standards, and
after having his eyes opened by Jesus, he realized that he had
in his obedience his strict adherence to the law.
He had completely missed Jesus. Now, after having his eyes
opened, he was free. He was free in Christ.
Free now to live his life for the glory of God, free from all
of that baggage of the old legalistic system.
But instead of using his freedom to do whatever he wanted, he
chose to be a servant. Why?
Why would someone willingly give up their freedom in order to
serve other people? He tells us it's so that he
could win them to Christ for the sake of the gospel.
He knew that those who didn't know Christ were lost.
They were as blind as he was before his conversion.
And so because as he reflected back on his blindness, he had
compassion on those who didn't know Jesus.
They were lost. And so he gave his freedom to
serve them in hopes that they too could become free.
He recognized that because he had been saved by the darkness
of the by the power of Jesus, he recognized now that he could be
a channel through which God could bring others to Christ.
For this reason, he decided to live his life in a strategic way
so that others could experience the same freedom that he had in
Christ. We see an example of Paul living
this out in the book of Acts in chapter 16, we read of Paul when
they go to the city of Philippi and, and while they're there,
while they're on their way to the temple, they come in contact
with a a girl who's possessed by a demon.
And he cast the demon out of her.
And her owners are not real happy about that because now
they had earned a lot of money through her fortune telling.
And so they have Paul and Silas put in prison.
Then we read in Acts chapter 16, about midnight, Paul and Silas
were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were
listening to them. And suddenly there was a great
earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were
shaken. And immediately all the doors
were opened and everyone's bonds were fastened, unfastened.
When the jailer woke up and saw. When the jailer woke up and saw
the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to
kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul cried out with a loud voice.
Do not harm yourself, for we are all here now.
If the jailer had killed himself, Paul and Silas would
have been free. They now could have escaped, and
they would have been free to go wherever they wanted to go.
But Paul now again risked his own life for the sake of the
gospel. He couldn't stand that this man
would kill himself. And so rather than choosing his
own freedom, he chose to be a servant.
That night, Paul shared the good news of the gospel with that
jailer so that they could come to faith in Christ.
They believed in the Lord. And that very same night they
were baptized into the family of God.
Because Paul put his own freedom on the line for the sake of the
gospel. He was more concerned about
winning souls than his own personal rights and freedoms.
Brothers and sisters, you have been saved from slavery to sin.
You've been saved from a fear of death through the forgiveness of
your sins. You no longer fear death because
you know what is waiting for you on the other side, eternity with
Christ. You could choose to live in your
freedom, to keep that freedom to yourself and all those blessings
that you've received from God. You could keep them to yourself
and live in your own freedom. But what you need to recognize
is that you could be the channel through which God could bring
others to Christ. You know, people who are lost in
their sin, family members, friends, coworkers, they are
slaves to sin and they don't even know it.
Do you have a heart for them? Can we say that we truly love
those people if we're not concerned for their souls?
What is the value of someone's soul?
Listen to what Charles Spurgeon, a preacher in the 1800s, had to
say about the value of a soul. You may I am sorry for that.
You may tell how serious it is to lose the soul from its
intrinsic value. The soul is a thing worth 10,000
worlds, in fact, a thing which worlds on worlds heaped together
like sand upon the seashore, could not buy.
It is more precious than if the ocean had each drop of itself
turned into a Golden Globe, for all that wealth could not buy a
soul. Consider the soul is made in the
image of its Maker. God made man, it is said, in his
own image. The soul is an everlasting
thing, like God. God has gifted it with
immortality, and hence it is precious to lose it.
Then how fearful? Consider how precious a soul
must be when both God and the devil are after it.
You never heard that the devil was after a Kingdom, did you?
No, he is not so foolish. He knows it would not be worth
His winning. He is never after that, but He
is always after souls. You never heard that God was
seeking after a crown, did you? No, He thinketh little of
dominions, but He is after souls.
Every day. His Holy Spirit is seeking His
children, and Christ came to save souls.
Do you think that which hell craves for and that which God
seeks for is not precious? Do you see the value of souls
around you? Do you think they are worth
saving? God could use you to give them
freedom from their sin. We need to cultivate a heart
that sees the value of souls, the lost around us.
We need to understand that if they die apart from Christ, they
will go to hell. They will be lost for all
eternity. But so often we're we're afraid
of sharing the good news of the gospel.
We we maybe don't know how to start a conversation or how do
we begin sharing the good news with them.
As we keep going through our passage this morning, Paul is
going to show us how we can master the art of winning souls.
Now let me start by saying there there is no magic way to share
the gospel so that people accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Jesus shares when he shares the parable of the sower.
He talks about this farmer who goes out and scatters seed and,
and even when it grows, he says the farmer has no idea how we go
out and we sow the seed and we are not the ones who grow it.
It is God who causes that seed to grow.
But we must be faithful to sow the seed.
That's our part. And so Paul gives us a helpful
principle to use in reaching others, which is that we must
become like them. Paul became like others so that
he could build a bridge to the gospel.
To master the art of winning souls.
The first thing you must do is to become like others to show
them Christ. Look at verse 20 and 21.
With me 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.
Paul intentionally became like others so that he could show
them Christ no matter who he was around.
He tried to be like them. Now he's very careful to say
that he didn't go into sin to do that.
But when he was around Jewish people, even though he believed
that all of the the Old Testament law had now been
fulfilled in Christ, he would sort of take on some of those
traditions. Not in the sense that he thought
they were accomplish anything, but just so that he could sort
of make himself like these people to in order to have a
bridge to the gospel. When he was around people who
weren't following any law at all, he became like them.
Again, he's careful to say I didn't sin.
I was still under the law of Christ.
He's not saying we willingly sin in order to save people.
That's not what he's saying. He's saying I would become like
them, those outside the law, in order to win them.
So he's like, I'm going to try to be like a chameleon in a
sense, no matter where I go, in hopes that I will have an
opportunity to share the gospel with them.
Andrew Nacelli says that Christian liberty for Paul is
not I am free to do whatever I want to do.
It is I am free to be flexible for the sake of the gospel.
Paul was willing to sacrifice on less important issues.
Hey, I'm not going to argue with you about this small thing so
that I can have an opportunity to talk to talk to you about the
greatest importance, salvation through Jesus Christ.
The second thing that we must do to master the art of winning
souls is to become like others to grow them in Christ.
In verse 22, he says to the weak, I became weak that I might
win the weak. I have become all things to all
people that by all means I might save some.
Now as I was studying for this passage, it most commentators
believe that he's not Speaking of those who are lost here when
he says the weak. We refer back to chapter 8 where
Pastor Jonah was talking about the weaker brother and Paul was
willing to to surrender his own rights for the sake of his
weaker brother. And so here we see a desire in
Paul to say, with my brothers and sisters in Christ who are
weaker than me, I'm willing to surrender my rights to help them
grow in Christ. That was his desire, so much so
that he says in verse 13 of chapter 8, if food makes my
brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother
stumble. He was willing to set aside his
freedom to help others grow in Christ.
The third thing we must do to master the art of winning souls
is to become like others, to overflow in Christ together.
Look at verse 23. He says, I do it all for the
sake of gospel that I may share with them in its blessings.
Paul was willing to become like those that he was ministering to
with the hope that they could overflow in the blessings of
Christ together. This is because sharing in
something is the fulfillment of the thing that we enjoy.
Have you ever thought of that before?
When we when we enjoy something, part of the enjoyment of that
thing, actually the completion of that enjoyment of that thing
is going and telling other people and sharing it with them.
I read this amazing book. You have to read it.
It's so good. I watched this new movie.
You, you have to see it. It's so good and even better,
let's watch it together. Have you tried Costco's soft
serve ice cream? It will change your life.
Let's go sometime and eat that ice cream together.
When we do things together, that's actually the joy, the
fulfillment of the joy of the thing that we're enjoying.
Paul had received these incredible blessings from God
and he says, I don't want to enjoy them all by myself.
I want to share in them with you.
And so he's looking for opportunities to share the
gospel with others so that he can share together in the
blessings of God. Growing up, my dad loved to take
us fishing. Over the years, he taught us how
to tie a line. He taught us how to bait a hook.
He taught us how to cast and how to reel.
And at this stage of my life I have a very small understanding
of fishing, but I have enough to to do those basic things.
Now, if you're like me, maybe you're tempted to think that
fishing is all about luck. Often times I look at people
there. There was a guy in high school.
I, I always remember this guy he had AT shirt and it said there's
a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore or looking
like an idiot. And it what that shirt is saying
is like, man, what, what's the difference?
What's the difference in knowing anything about fishing?
No matter what, you just look ridiculous.
You're standing there hoping that a fish is going to bite
your line. And you may be tempted to think,
like me, that it's luck until you fish with someone who knows
what they're doing. OK, everybody has bad days.
But if you know my dad, and if anybody in here has fished with
my dad, you know that he almost always catches more fish than
you. Always without fail, it's
because he knows what he's doing.
You need to know if you're going to catch a fish.
You need to know what types of bait to use, what types of hooks
to use. You need to know the fish that
you're trying to catch when you're fishing.
You have to set aside your desires.
You know, sometimes I'm sitting there and I'm going, hey, I, I
have this Big Mac that I haven't quite finished yet.
Maybe I'll throw that on there. It's like a fish doesn't want to
eat a Big Mac. You have to, I have to set aside
my desires and I have to go, what does this fish want to eat?
Because when I, when I catch the fish, I have to appeal to the
fish and what the fish wants. I have to become one with the
fish and think like a fish if I want to catch the fish.
Well, brothers and sisters, this is exactly what it's like when
it comes to the gospel. All of these people that we know
who don't know Christ are lost and what our desire is to win
them to Christ. And so we need to become like
them. We need to begin to think like
them. What are the things that they
enjoy to talk about? What are the things that they
enjoy doing? And how can I become like them
so that I can gain an audience with them, so that I can have a
conversation, so that hopefully I can bridge to the gospel, I
can find some point of conversation that will lead us
to spiritual things. Because remember, you could be
the channel through whom God could bring others to Christ.
We need to be willing to conform to those around us.
Now, again, remember, Paul doesn't give us a license to
sin. We never sin to save people, but
we are willing to be flexible and maybe talk about things that
I don't like to talk about. Maybe you don't know much about
hockey or football or some other sport, but you have a family
member who loves the Maple Leafs.
Well, you sacrificing your freedoms would be, I hate
hockey, but I'm going to do some research on the Maple Leafs and
find out who the top scorers are so that I can start a
conversation or maybe just ask questions and be interested in
the thing that they're interested about in hopes that I
will have an opportunity to say, hey, actually I was reading this
week. Did you know that guy's a
Christian? What, what does Christianity
mean to you? What does that mean to you?
Find a bridge to the gospel. Maybe you love talking about
politics, but some of you, I know you well and you really
like to get to your opinion. You really like to to lay the
hammer down. And we like to really tell them
why we think their political candidate sucks.
Brothers and sisters, that's not wise.
That's a small issue. And people are turned off by
your arrogance and your pride. Set aside that discussion
because guess what, that Prime Minister, that president is
going to be dead in 50 years. Who cares?
Let's set aside that smaller issue to talk about a far
greater issue, their salvation. Why don't you ask them about
their political party that they like?
Why do you like them? Hey, I value that too.
Find ways to affirm what they believe so that you can get to
the gospel. I'm not saying just a random
conversation. Find things in the conversation
that you can tie and connect and bridge to the gospel to begin
talking about spiritual things. We need to live intentionally,
strategically, so that we can have conversations with people
and become like them so that we have an opportunity to share the
gospel with them. Now, we've seen that Paul had a
heart for winning souls to Christ and that he had mastered
the art of becoming like them. Next, we see that Paul was
diligent to chart a path for winning souls.
Now, if you want to win at anything, you need to make a
plan and stick to it. You need to chart a path.
You need to create a direction of where you're going and begin
to map it out. And that's exactly what Paul
does in this section. He knows what race he's running,
he knows the prize that's up for a grab, and so he lives
intentionally to reach the goal to win the prize.
So the first thing we have to do when we're charting a path or
making a plan is we have to be able to decide what is it?
What race are we trying to run? What are we trying to achieve?
Paul's encouragement to us this morning is run the race of
winning souls to Christ. Look at verse 24.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only
one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.
Now Paul uses this analogy of of running a race which would have
been very familiar to the Corinthians.
They had the Isthmian games that would happen there every two
years. And we remember that Corinth was
a sort of a a hub of activity. It was a cross path of of many
different cities and it was a trade route went through there.
So many different people came together.
So there were a lot of cultures, a lot of gods, a lot of
religions, a lot of different mindsets and activities.
And so with all these people coming in, it was a good
location to have these sorts of games.
And one of the games that they would have are races.
Now what Paul is saying that even though there's many
different people who are competing in this race, how many
win one? There's one that wins.
And so you have to give it all you got.
Paul knew what race he was running.
We have to ask the question, what is Paul talking about when
he's talking about a race? What is Paul trying to win?
Well, he's been telling us five times over the past few verses.
He says to win them, to win them, to win them, to win them.
Paul. Paul's win is people coming to
faith in Christ. That's the race he's running.
He wants to win people to Christ.
And as I was thinking about it this week, we, we live in a
world where there are so many different cultures, so many
different world views. And how many world views wins at
the end of that person's life? One, they choose the thing that
they believe in. So brothers and sisters, we are
running a race of world views, of religion, of faith in Christ.
So we need to run diligently so that those people who are lost
in Christ come to understand who he is and they believe in the
one Savior. The next thing that we need to
do when we're charting a path and making a plan is we need to
run the race with an imperishable prize.
Verse 25, Paul says every athlete exercises self-control
in all things. They do it to receive a
perishable wreath. But we an imperishable, the
athletes in the Ismian Games, they had to be incredibly self
controlled and disciplined in order to win the prize for that
victory was a wreath. And that wreath, and you know,
it started out as being some dry celery that they would, you
know, band together and put on the person's head.
But in the time of the Romans, they made it a a wreath of pine.
And that's what we see. But no matter the case, this
wreath probably didn't last very long, right?
It it faded away. It was perishable.
A runner who wins that race receives a crown that fades.
And guess what? The next time those events come
around, someone else is going to win, and they're going to forget
that you won it the last time. So both the prize and the fact
that you won the race are going to fade away.
They're going to perish. But Paul knew that he was a
running a race that had an imperishable prize, he says in
his letter to the Philippians. I press on toward the goal for
the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
The imperishable prize of being in God's presence through Jesus
Christ lasts for eternity. That honor will never fade.
Therefore, we ought to run the race with discipline and focus.
In verse 26 and 27, he says so. I do not run aimlessly.
I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body
and keep it under control. The word that he uses there for
discipline is actually a word that's associated with a black
eye. It's like I'm willing to to
actually force myself to harm myself, to keep myself
disciplined. That's how intentionally he
lives. And it's because the the value
of the prize is so great that he's willing to sacrifice and
discipline himself. Think of the athletes in the
Games, how disciplined they were, and what do they get out
of it? A leafy crown in the honor of
having won the race, right? At least for that year.
But we know there is a far greater prize in heaven than
anything on earth. Eternity in heaven with our
Savior. How much more should we
discipline ourselves for that prize so that others can receive
that prize? Since eternity is at stake, we
must be disciplined and focused as we seek to win souls to
Christ. Now, this past summer, the
Olympics were held in Paris. I was very thankful for a really
easy illustration. Like man, obviously I'm going to
talk about the Olympics. Over 10,000 athletes from 32
different countries competed in front of billions of viewers
worldwide. All for what?
The hope of winning gold. Now as I was talking with a
friend about the Olympics this week, he he told me this and I
actually didn't know this, but he said, did you know that the
gold medal is not made of pure gold?
I mean, maybe you knew that I didn't know that.
I was a bit surprised by that. It's actually made-up of 95,
about 95% silver and 6 grams of gold.
Now that interestingly that it used to be made out of pure
gold, that was the last time a pure gold medal was handed out
was in 1912. Now a solid gold medal today
would be worth $40,000, but since the medals that were given
out this year only had about 6 grams of gold, they were worth
only about $1000. Now I want you to think about
that $1000, OK? Now I know the athletes are not,
they're not doing it necessarily for the gold medal, they're
doing it for what it is. But let's just look at the gold
medal. It's worth $1000, OK?
Think of all of the countless hours of disciplined training,
of disciplined eating, forcing themselves out of bed in the
morning to go train, to go work. Think of all the times they said
no to family and friends because they needed to go to the gym or
they needed to go run more and and exercise and train.
Think of all the money that they had to invest in the best
trainers, the the healthiest food and the best gym.
They're willing to sacrifice and discipline themselves in all of
those areas for what, $1000 medal?
Now again, as I said, I know it's not just about the medal,
it's about what the medal represents, that you're the
greatest in the world for now because in a few years someone
else is going to win and then no one remembers that you won it.
The prize and the medal, they fade, Brothers and sisters,
souls are worth more than gold and metal.
Peter says that a believer's genuine faith is more precious
than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire.
Through our faith, we are running a race for which we will
receive a prize that will never fade away.
We will be with God in heaven forever, perfect, spotless,
blameless, righteous before him, enjoying all the goodness of
God. He has saved us from the
corruption of the world and giving us the hope that we will
be divine beings ourselves, Peter says.
But God has not saved us to keep this to ourselves.
There are those around us who don't know what Christ has done
for them. God has called us to share the
good news with them. Paul, in his second letter to
the Corinthians, says all this is from God, who through Christ
reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation. That is in Christ.
God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their
trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the ministry of
reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors
for Christ, God making his appeal through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
As ambassadors for Christ, we must live intentionally.
We must chart a path for winning souls.
It's not going to happen by accident.
You need to be thinking of the people that you come into
contact with on a regular basis and come up with a plan of how
you can begin to start conversations.
How can I start to become like them?
Maybe stop finding out their interests, things that they
enjoy so that I can live intentionally.
This is what I'm going to do. Tomorrow at break.
I'm going to have this conversation with them.
You need to put those plans in place and have ask someone else
to keep you accountable. We need to be intentional so
that we can have an opportunity to share the good news of what
Christ has done with those who don't know.
You could be the channel through which God could bring others to
Christ. In 1731, Anthony Ulrich, who was
a former slave, pleaded with the Moravian Church to send
missionaries to Saint Thomas. This is where he had been
enslaved. And he told them that that in
order to reach those slaves, the person who goes is going to have
to become a slave himself. Because the slaves were forced
to work all day long, and at the end of the day they wouldn't be
able to leave the camp or wherever they were staying.
And so the only way to get in to preach to the slaves was to
become a slave. Or at least so they thought.
Jenner, John Leonard Dober, and David Nichman were ready for the
call. They were willing to give up
their freedom. They said we would be willing to
be sold into slavery, to willingly go into slavery to
reach those people with the gospel.
We would be willing to become like slaves in order to win
their souls. As it turned out, the law of the
land determined that it was illegal.
They, they couldn't actually legally sell themselves into
slavery, so they had to find another way.
And they did. They went through much
opposition, through much persecution.
People told them they what all the struggles and all the
persecutions and all the trials they were going to face.
You're never going to make it. But as they got into the boat
and as they left, as the story goes, they shouted from the
boat, may the lamb that was slain receive the reward of this
suffering. And that's exactly what
happened. Because of their willingness to
surrender their own freedom to become like others, God
eventually saved thousands of souls on that island through the
spread of the gospel. Brothers and sisters, this is
just how Jesus loved us. He willingly set aside his own
freedom to come to live the perfect life of righteousness
that you and I could never live to die is the sacrifice that
that we didn't deserve to die the death that we did deserve.
He was raised from the grave on the third day and ascended into
heaven where he now sits and pleads for those who are His
children. One day Jesus is going to return
and take those who have trusted in His sacrifice and give them
an eternal reward for their faith and their trust in Him.
Have you placed your faith in God's Son as your Saviour?
What is stopping you from doing that today?
No one has seen a greater love than that.
We would love to talk with you about what that means for you to
place your faith in Jesus Christ.
We will be here, I'll be here. I would love to talk with you
about what that means to have all of your sins forgiven and to
have peace in Christ. But if you have put your faith
in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you are free from the
power of sin and death. Brothers and sisters, use your
freedom to serve others, to become like them in hopes that
you can share the good news of Jesus Christ with them in order
to win their souls to Christ. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your incredible grace in our lives.
We thank you for saving us and Lord, if we're honest, if
anybody in this room is is like me, then it when it comes to
sharing the gospel with people, we are terrified or we are so
afraid of what people will think of us, what they will save us.
Lord, in our honesty, that's how we feel.
But we pray that you would give us a boldness and a courage that
when we see others and and we hesitate to to inconvenience
them with a conversation about spiritual things.
Would you help us to know the value of salvation, the value of
the reward and the promises that we have in Christ and think, how
could we not share something of such incredible value and worth?
Give us boldness and wisdom to become like others so that we
can share Your good news with them.
Or we know that it is only You that can save.
And so we pray that as we have conversations, that you would
work in and through our words, in and through us to save others
and bring them to Christ, that You would strengthen our faith
and give us the joy of seeing our faith in action, of seeing
You working in and through our obedience.
And may the Lamb receive all the glory, all the praise, and all
the honor. In His name we ask and pray.
Amen.