Help me to preach this message smoothly and help people to
hopefully gain something from it and choose his name.
Amen. OK if y'all would please turn to
First Peter 315 for me, I'd like to ask a question.
Have you ever been in this situation or where a
conversation came up about your faith to a non believer and were
you able to defend and communicate what you believe?
Because some people in this situation are are unable to do
these two things or try to avoid the topic, which we shouldn't do
and in some instances have no idea what they're talking about.
Today we're going to dive deeper into this.
So since you all have turned to it, let's read first Peter 315
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always
to give an answer to every man that asketh you for a reason of
the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.
The title of my message today is always Be ready.
Here's a quick story. When I myself had a situation
where I was able to share my faith with someone, I was at my
work. Not not with Johnny but at my
second job at Chick-fil-A. I heard my Co workers talking
about what they were going to do that Sunday and one of the more
interesting of the few said he was going to church.
So I asked asked him what church do you go to?
I don't really remember the name.
It was some sort of Community Church, but it was one of those
I could tell it was one of those like left wing pride flag
churches that support abortion, gays and always have a woman
pastor. So then he started explaining to
me what he believed at this church, which was pretty much
that they didn't believe that there was like a God that
believed that God was all around us and in each one of us.
So pretty much each one of us is a part of God, which is kind of
weird. So I used that opportunity to
tell him, and he called himself a Christian.
So I used that opportunity to tell him what real Christianity
was and why I believed what I believe through that.
Which leads me to my first point.
We need to always be ready to share the gospel.
So in order to share the gospel, we need to make sure we know the
gospel and what is in the Bible. Being able to share that we are
all sinners in need of a Savior and by accepting God's gift,
salvation through faith and repentance, we are able to avoid
an eternity and hell and be be able to spend that time with in
heaven with our Lord and Savior. If you turn with me to Matthew
724 through 27, we'll read that after my second point off of
this. Secondly, we need to have a
strong foundation, as mentioned in Matthew 724 through 25, that
is rooted in God's Word, and we'll go ahead and read that.
Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth
them will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon
a rock. The rain descended, and the
winds blew and beat that house, and it fell not, for it was
founded on a rock. And everyone that here with
these sayings of mine, and do with them not, shall be likened
unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand.
The rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat on that house, and it fell, and great was the fault of
it. There is no way we can expect to
be able to share the gospel and the wisdom of the Bible if we
don't even know what is in the Bible.
Which one of the reasons that which is one of the main reasons
we need to be spending time in God's Word constantly so that we
can be ready to answer questions that arise.
Also, if you think your faith comes from your parents which is
going to church every Sunday, following the steps, walking the
walk but not actually believing it, you have a weak foundation
and it will crumble and fall. The Third Point off of that I
have. Thirdly, you must always live
out and exercise your faith. You can't live 1 life for God
and a whole nother life for yourself and the world.
I have two verses that back up this point.
Matthew 624 No man can serve 2 masters, for either he will hate
1 and love the other, or else he will hold to 1 and despise the
other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
And then the second one, one that we recently memorized,
Galatians 110 For do I not now persuade men or God?
Or do I see Or do I seek to please men?
For if I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of
Christ. Just think if Pastor Boots
somehow someway tried to live a double life where every day he
would go and try to serve, do whatever that pleased his flesh
and did nothing in his life for God, but then came to church on
Sunday and acted like he was a good Christian.
Not not many people around him would look at him and say wow
look at him. I can really see a difference in
him and what he has because in this instance they already have
what he has, living for sin and self and they aren't happy with
it. We need to try our hardest to
live our lives the way God wants us to live them.
So people do see a difference in US.
Also off that point, we also want to not just wait for people
to come up to us, say, hey, I see a difference in you, but we
want to try to make a try to put Christ in our conversations
around us, trying to create those conversations, not just
wait for them to pop up. Second, my second point of
today, my first one was always be ready to share the gospel.
My second one is going to be always be ready to defend your
faith. There's always going to be
people who you try to share the gospel to them, but they end up
rejecting it completely and trying to pushing their own
beliefs. So my verse for that is going to
be Jude 13. Beloved, when I gave all
diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was
needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should
earnestly content for the faith which was once delivered unto
the Saints. When defending your faith, we
need to understand that doctrine matters.
Being able to explain that you can't just live your Christian
life however you want and expect God to forgive you every single
time you sin and take advantage of His grace that He's given
you. Knowing that once saved we
should try not to sin and understanding that we don't stop
sinning in order to be saved, but we stopped sinning because
we are saved. And then my verse for that First
Timothy 416 to keyed Take heed unto thyself, and unto the
doctrine. Continue in them for enduring
this Thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee
better be here. I have that we should always
know our enemy. We see in the military that it's
important to know your enemy and know how they think, so we can
have the best and most accurate plan possible.
We need to prepare for the most common attacks on our faith,
like one that science has replaced God.
Apparently there is no way that this could be true.
The earth did not come from absolutely nothing and some Big
Bang. There's so much evidence that
evolution is wrong, I don't know how anyone could believe it.
Pastor said this morning actually that the evolution, the
science that people have made-up is more myth making than science
lately #2 for that we need to be prepared for the attacked that
there is apps, that there is no app, that there is no absolute
truth. The theory for this is
completely wrong. We know this because we can find
all of our truth in the Bible, which kind of goes back to my
last point. We need to make sure we're
reading the Bible and make sure we know the truth that's in the
Bible so that we can back up, so that we can compel the wrong
truths or the twisted truths of the world of people trying to
push their false doctrines or faiths on us.
And then John 1717 is a good one for that.
Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.
You should want to know the truth because one of the main
areas, the devil and the people around you try to trip you up,
is by twisting the truth, making it sound just close enough to
the real truth that you could believe it.
For we know that Satan is the father of lies.
John 844 Ye are of your father, the devil, the devil, the lusts
of your father, ye will do. He was a murderer from the
beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth
in him. When we speaketh a lie, he
speaketh his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.
So in closing today, I would like to ask the question, do we
spend enough time in our Bibles to be able to share and defend
our faith in everyday instances, whether at work or wherever else
you could be? And Are you ready to do that
today? And I will close this in prayer.
Dear Lord, thank you for bringing us all out here
tonight. I pray that hopefully I was able
to put my point across and I was people will be able to take
something from this message and use it in their everyday lives
in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
I think the future of our church
is strong and got a lot of potential in here for these
young men. And I appreciate the message.
I appreciate them stepping outside of their comfort zone.
That's difficult, you know. I mean, I remember how it was
for me when I first started doing it.
And now I'm just as comfortable here as I am sitting there, you
know, In fact, I'd, I'd rather be here a lot of times, you
know, but it's not that way for people who don't do it all the
time and leading songs and everything else.
I think we ought to have a men's service and get all the men to
come up here and do that right? Make the men preach, make the
men lead the songs, make the men do the different things.
A lot of you are doing it already, but pull you out of
your comfort zone, make you do some things like that.
But it's, it's good. It's a good experience for them
and I'm excited for them. And listen, I, I hope God calls
every one of them into the ministry.
I don't know if he will or not, but even if he doesn't, he can,
He can do the same thing with them that he's doing with a lot
of you. Just be here, be faithful, serve
in the ministries of a local church.
And as of tonight, I am making a decision that none of them are
allowed to leave and go anywhere else.
So they have to stay here and raise their families here and
they're not allowed to leave. So I don't know what they're
going to do, but we'll see what happens.
So now I know it's, it's it's, it's not possible to keep
everybody here because God calls him to different places.
Johnny's going out to California tomorrow.
Johnny Junior and he's getting stationed out there and he'll be
out there probably for a few years, I'm guessing.
But you know, you just never know where, where God's going to
call somebody, where they're going to end up.
But I hope that wherever they do end up, they'll be a huge
addition to that church and be a huge help because they got some
experience doing it here. And just give them a heart for
the ministry and a heart to do things for the Lord.
And I'm, I'm thankful for them and thankful for the families.
I'm thankful for all of you who are raising your young people to
to love the Lord it and I don't want to preach a message, but
you know it. It starts at home.
We can preach all we want to. I can I can preach so I'm blue
in the face and you can hear every message exactly perfect
the way that it needs to be preached and everything else.
If you're not doing it at home, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. It helps it helps, but at home
is where it counts. And so I appreciate what you're
doing there and I want to do. I want to encourage you to just
keep, keep doing it and it's worth it.
It's worth it. And boy, I can imagine if every
one of our young people grow up and live for the Lord, I don't
know why we have to pretend like we have to lose some of them to
the world. We don't have to lose any of
them. They can all grow up and live
for the Lord and do something for him.
So we'll go ahead and stand, we'll close in prayer, and then
we'll sing our song and be dismissed.
I think the weather's probably all right for now.
But if you feel like you're need to drive safe, it's still a
little bit light outside. So maybe you get out of here
right away and get home and it'll be fine.
But thanks for being here tonight.
Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so
much for your goodness. Thank you for an opportunity we
have to be here together. Thank you for the young men and
for their willingness to step into these roles that are
uncomfortable for them, but that are going to help them for later
on and, and, or even help to us tonight.
Thank you for the message. Thank you for the, the singing
and the, and the special music and all the things that the
young people did this evening. God and, and I do thank you that
we have families in in our church that are serious about
raising their kids for you and about having them grow up and
serve you with their lives. And I pray that I pray for every
one of our kids. I pray that every one of them
would grow up and make a decision that they're going to
live for you, that they're going to follow their your will for
their lives and that they'll do that to the best of their
ability, that they'll be even stronger than we are here today.
And I pray that you would just bless them for the work that
they'll do for you. Thank you again for all you do
for us in Jesus name, Amen.