It's great to see everyone back this afternoon.
I mentioned when I opened up in the morning that I had a sports
analogy and I'll set a sports analogy for this afternoon that
wasn't actually planned, but I don't have just talked about
sports, believe it or not even though I do like sports and
religion. What your favorite things to
talk about? But going back to my childhood,
I played on a lot of different teams.
And when I was in high school, my junior year in high school
during football season, we had a really good team and they're
just one of those things are a small school public school, so
you don't have a good team just about every year.
Just usually kind of comes together.
It was one of those years where had the right group of kids and
the right plan and we had a great season and we were playing
at that time in San Diego, we're playing a rank.
Steam and for a small school, you don't get a chance to play A
ranked team very often. So we are all excited for the
game. And long story short, the game
started, we were playing great, they didn't know what hit him,
it was really cold that day. We kind of played in the
mountains and they were from the desert.
So they really have a chance, weather-wise and the end of the
game, it was thirty four to nothing.
We won. So we're feeling pretty good
about ourselves and we were going into last couple weeks of
the Season. We are undefeated and we are
playing at that time, the third place team, and our league and
of course as the team, that's the top dog.
You start kind of smelling yourself with what they say.
And we say well, you know, we're probably going to win this game
and we're going to go to on 25 an undefeated season.
Well, there's one of those days where it was really hot
unusually. Hot.
We weren't really used to that. We didn't, we weren't ready to
play. We weren't excited.
We weren't pumped up, and it was a close game all the way down to
the end, and they ended up scoring in the fourth quarter.
And they won the game by a touchdown.
And of course, we were heartbroken as teenagers, we
lost the big game and back in the locker room, people were
crying. They were hitting the walls.
And why why do we lose? And I was never really a type of
person, but I was pretty small L my team.
So I didn't say anything. I didn't want to lie, you guys
crying. I just kept my mouth shut.
Why are all these big giant? Guys are crying in the corner
and I was like, it's just a game guys.
But of course, that's teenage years and testosterone and all
that. Well, they were crying and they
are upset because they expected to win, like we had this great
Season. We're going to, we could go
undefeated and we lost and now they're really upset and
expected to win. Well, so I played on some really
bad teams in my life, especially when I played soccer soccer was
new to our area when I started. And a lot of it, the league
around us. A lot of the kids have been
playing since they were little kids.
Five years old. We all started when we were like
10 or 11. So none of us knew how to play
and if you're not Not that familiar with soccer.
Generally, a good game in the prose is 221, you know, one to
nothing 00. Sometimes three, two, one, we
lost every single game 12-nothing 14-nothing.
If we got the ball past halfway Midfield we are like oh that was
a good possession that's great. Or if we even got a chance to
score if we even took a shot I was like okay that was a big
deal. And I think we may have a score
like Five goals the whole season but you know what's interesting
about those teams after the game nobody was crying.
Nobody was upset. We were laughing having a good
time. We'd go out and get ice cream.
Or we go to Carl's jr. Or something.
Why was that, why? It was that we expected to lose.
We knew we were going to lose. So why be upset about it?
Why would be a bit upset? When we knew what was already
going to happen here? My other team, we lost a close
game and everybody's crying because expected to win.
They were upset. Now, here I have these kind of
to two positions that people take and I won't go to contend
to morning at sometimes. In the church we can be like my
soccer team. Is that we expect to lose to the
world. We see the world around us is
wicked and evil. And we see maybe I'm not
familiar with this area as well. But at least in El, Cajon where
I live. We're surrounded by these mega
churches where they have no immunity heard of Daniel,
Jeremiah the televangelists. He's three miles from our
building. We have The Rock Church.
I don't know if you've heard of that lie, where I can't remember
his name. Now, the top of my head, but
he's on TV as well. And then you have Foothills or
surf right across the street. And they have a All block of
buildings, All Surrounded surrounding us.
And I feel sometimes at the church is that we expect people
not to be interested. We expect people not to come to
worship. We expect people to reject our
message. And I would like to say that we
should not think that way or feel that way. if you truly
believe that God is on your side, that means you're on The
Winning Side. God does not want us to have a
losing mentality that we are powerless that we don't have
ability to convert people, that we don't have.
The ability to bring the gospel to people this afternoon.
I want us to think that we can win souls for Christ, even this
day and age this time, in this state, in this city, people can
turn to Christ. If we follow God's word and we
trust in it in Proverbs 11:30 the fruit of the righteous is a
tree of life and he who wins what, who is wise, when's Souls?
Brothers sisters. We are in a battle.
Tween Satan. And us.
Battle over Souls. In verse 4 of First, John
chapter 3, John tells us everyone who makes a practice of
sinning also practices. Lawlessness sin is lawlessness.
You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in
him. There is no sin, no one who
abides in him, keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has
ever seen him or known him little children.
Let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness
is righteous as he is righteous. Whoever Makes a practice of
sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the
beginning. The reason of the Son of God
appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
Notice here, the very end. The reason some of that appeared
was to destroy the works of the devil.
Now, I admit I don't often think about that.
I often think about Jesus coming as as giving us guidance as
giving us a way of life and ultimately dying for our sins on
the cross, which is absolutely right.
But do we often think about Jesus also came to destroy the
Devil to overcome him to put him in his place.
That's exactly what he did. Jesus overcame him the devil
tempted. Him, he came to him.
He threw everything he had at him and he devil thought he won.
When he was Jesus was crucified. but Jesus was resurrected and
the devil was defeated Do you realize that you are on The
Winning Side today? Why should we feel defeated?
Well we shouldn't now I realize it's hard to convert people.
I realized that it's not easy when people say no and we can
get down and sometimes congregations get smaller but
that's that's not the case everywhere.
That's not the case at all times.
Partly, it's because of us, we lose hope we stopped working.
We stopped asking our neighbors, we stopped getting being
involved in the evangelism of the church.
Well, there is a battle going on of our souls and we have to
consider that if we're not reaching out to those in sin or
not, reaching out to the Lost. They can potentially lose their
soul, there's going to be a great separation.
You read about it. Jesus explains in Matthew 25,
when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with
him, then he will sit on his glorious Throne before him will
be gathered all the nations and he will separate people from one
another. As a Shepherd separates the
sheep from the goats and he will place the sheep on his right,
but the goats on his left. Jesus is coming to return, he is
coming to fulfill his mission and that is going to bring all
of us into judgment. And what's going to be an
account as everyone's Soul, how they lived, how they what are
they became a Christian or whether they stayed away of the
world? Well, the Sheep on the right, I
realize I probably should put this backwards.
I don't make a lot more sense. The Sheep on the right then the
king will say to those on his. Right?
Come who you are blessed of my father, inherit the Kingdom,
prepared for you, from the foundation of the world.
And on the goats that left then he will say to those on his left
depart from me, you cursed into the Eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels. There are people that we know
people that we talk to people that we love that are going to
be on the left with the goats. God has given us.
The gospel of salvation. Now, if you truly care about
your neighbor or your family member, your Your coworker.
Why don't we share the message of Saving Grace of Jesus Christ?
We have a role to play in James chapter 5.
We read my brother's If anyone among you wanders from the truth
and someone brings him back. Let him know that.
Whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering.
Will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of
sins. God wants us to have compassion
on those who have wandered away from the truth.
I realized today that we can get so caught up in our own little
world. I know I do this is that we're
focused on we wake up or we're getting ready for work.
We're getting the kids ready for school.
We were thinking that what we have to do that day.
Maybe already thinking about what we have to do in the
afternoon. What we have to do for dinner,
getting that ready. Then we either we go to work.
We go to school. We have to be our
responsibilities in the daytime. We get home after, you know, a
long day. Maybe there's some time to
unwind and then you have to go right back into chores and
taking care of kids, or maybe visiting family, or maybe have
someone sick in the hospital. There's a lot of things to do in
a day. But do we consider that there
are people who are lost that need?
Help to find the way. Well, the reality is it doesn't
take much to encourage someone. I can send a two-sentence text
in about 10 seconds especially now that I can just talk right
into my phone and say, hey how are you doing?
I haven't seen you in a while. And they say, oh well thanks I
haven't seen you in a while either.
You know, we still have we could still write cards the
old-fashioned way. We can send emails, we can call,
we can send a text to check in on people that have wandered
away. We need to Value their soul.
I know, we can get caught up in what we're doing, but we all
have a role to play in this now. I like to go hiking and I know
you have mountains close by here and I'm assuming some of you are
hikers. Generally when I go hiking, we
stay on the trail. I'm not wealthy people that just
goes and runs wild out there and finds a spot.
We have a trail that we do and I've really never been lost
hiking, but I know there are people who are a lot more
adventurous than I am that that get stuck somewhere, that that
lose the trail even following a trail sometimes it you don't
know where it goes. I even kind of embarrassing.
I don't know if you're familiar with the PCT, the Pacific Crest
Trail. Where it starts from the Mexican
border goes all the way up to the Canadian border and it
actually starts in my hometown in Campo, right on the Mexican
border, the Mexican American Border.
So we decided you were going to start hiking portions of it and
me my brother, and our friend, Josh who came part of the way.
And the very first section starts on her hometown and it
goes up to the lake where my parents live, and we're on the
trail and we're walking along about halfway through.
We get to a road. And the road kind of breaks up
the trail. So we start walking down the
road to find the trail and we can't find the trail.
And it's really embarrassing because we're about five miles
from my house. It's like wow, we're lost and I
think it took me about 45 minutes to find the trail, but
eventually we found it. But and that was a wide-open
area to there was no trees above us or we can we couldn't see the
Sun, but as you can, as you can see it, go down to force out in
the wilderness. People can get lost and they
don't know the way out. As well as Christians.
There are people who are wandering right around us and
they're like, I don't know, the way to Jesus, I don't know.
The way that God and we don't, we don't say anything to them.
We have a map that shows them the way.
But we're not handing it out to them.
We're not speaking it to them, we're not checking in with them.
To say, hey, do you know the way to Jesus Christ?
You know, the way to Salvation this goes for our friends goes,
for our neighbors, it goes for our family.
Going starting off with our friends.
When I was a teenager, I was baptized when I was 16.
I grew up going to church in the Church of Christ.
My mom and my mom was baptized, my grandparents were Christians.
So I had a culture growing up in the church but I wasn't
necessarily active in the church.
I was there on Sunday on Sunday morning.
I was there Wednesday is no Sunday, afternoons.
Nope. Maybe after potluck or
something, I would stick around. And when I would be with my
friends, now I'm not going to say I was a wild person, I
really wasn't but I didn't miss Lee, talk about God and my
friends we talked about everything else but that and as
my early 20s, I started to get more involved in the church.
And when Matt Trent came down into San Diego and started
working down there, I started doing Bible studies with him.
I maybe my whole life I may be done for Bible studies, my whole
life of that point and I was Doing three a week.
So I was getting a lot more involved.
I was cited and I invited my friends to the Bible study.
I think for my friends came to the Bible study and that was
really exciting and one of my friends actually to my friends
ended up getting baptized Mostly because of math.
Course I was just there. He did all the talking But I had
a very almost heartbreaking conversation with my friends
where it just really kind of punches you in the gut.
I was talking to my friend and he had been baptized for a while
and thing is we had been friends since seventh grade and so I
have we've known each other for a long time and he just we're
talking in one day he said Andrew How come you never
invited me to church before? He's like, we're friends for
trying do the math here, at least eight, nine years and it
did it took you nine years to invite me to church, how come
you never invited me to church. And I was one of those things
where it just hits you. And the reason was because his
family didn't go to church, but he was always interested in
going to church, but no one really invited him.
He'd go sometimes here and there but when I invited he was
excited, someone invited me and I'm going to Go.
But all those years, I didn't invite him one time, I'll try to
think back on my life. How many people had contact
with? I never invited them to church
once. How many co-workers I had, how
many schoolmates I didn't invite them to church once or to a
Bible study or even say the word Jesus in front of me, it's very
shameful to think about, but now that I'm cognizant of that, we
all need to be cognizant that people around us are lost our
neighbors. Do your neighbors know that you
go to church, do your neighbors know that you're a Christian.
What about even some of our own family?
Now, I know that's a very uncomfortable Terrible
conversation. I would rather talk to a
complete stranger about Jesus. Then someone I'm very close to
that. I know that has different
opinions to me because it can be an awkward conversation.
But is it worth having an awkward conversation to win?
Someone's soul. I think it is.
If you put it, like, put it in perspective, people are lost,
but we know the way about God gives us people.
He gives us people in our lives. He gives us people in the church
to lead us away from this Darkness into light and verse 11
of Ephesians 4. Paul says, any games the
apostles the prophets, evangelists the shepherd's, the
teachers took whip this It's for the work of Ministry for
building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity
of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God to a mature.
Manhood to the measure of the statute of fullness of Christ.
So that we no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves and
carried about by every wind of Doctrine by human cunning by
craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather speaking the truth in
love we are to grow up to every way unto him, who is the head
unto Christ? Going back to your mindset.
That's what we'll be talking about.
Today is our mindset of. Are we here to win?
Souls for Christ? Or are we just taking up space?
In the church, are we actively serving our role in the church.
Now, not everyone is going to be the preacher and God makes that
very clear. If you read 1st Corinthians, do
you read. Romans 12 has a different role
for us, and we're going to get to one of those passages.
But are we fulfilling a role in the church?
Are we doing our part to spread the gospel?
Now, I mentioned sometimes we'd only have to be the ones doing
the talking. But we should be the ones, doing
the inviting, I know you have great teachers here that are
capable of sharing the gospel with people.
We can invite them to church, invite them to a Bible study or
maybe even start the conversation ourselves and say,
hey would you be interested in talking to one of our preachers
more about Jesus? The gospel, you might be
surprised by their answer, you might be surprised.
We have an influence, God expects us to influence those
for the good. Jesus said, you are the light of
the world say that set on a hill cannot be hidden nor people
light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand and it
gives light to all in the house in the same way.
Let your light shine before others.
So they will may see your good works and give glory to your
father who is in heaven. I know this people to this many
times to bring someone to Christ.
We don't have to preach a sermon to them.
Live the life of the Christian be an example unto them and they
will see your good works. And glorify your father in
Heaven when we do a kind deed for someone and they say thank
you. We say it's all for the glory of
God. Oh really.
Are you a Christian? Yes, I am.
We have an influence in this world possible, Paul understood
this, that he was there to serve other people.
And First Corinthians 9 in verse 19 says 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 one under the law though, not being myself under
the law. They had my twin those under the
law to those outside the law. 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 week, I became weak that I might win the week.
I have become all things to all people that I have been all
means I might save some Apostle. Paul the right attitude says
there are people who have Jewish backgrounds or people who have
maybe a Greek background of philosophical background.
I can relate to them, I can share them the way I can point
them in the line that they can get to Christ.
Everyone here has a unique background.
That is different than the person sitting next, to you,
even your spouse even your own family.
I have a background that might relate to someone else.
I have a sports background. I am a middle child.
Whatever it is. Maybe I'll meet someone else
that's five foot nine. Am 5 foot nine to.
We both. Can we both can follow Jesus.
Whether it's our ethnicity, what other, whether it's where we're
from, we all have an ability to relate to other people and
that's what Paul. So, Paul did he recognize that?
Well, I have a lot of ways I can relate to people.
I said, I've been a weak person. I'm the chief of Sinners.
All you think you're a bad person?
Wait till you hear my story? How bad I was?
But God changed me. And God can change anyone who
comes to. Then when order for us to
accomplish this and worse for us to have this mindset that we're
going to be out there winning souls and in business and
marketing and I've been learning a little bit about marketing
myself. And a lot of times we focus on
the the, the losing things say, well, I talked to my neighbor
and they rejected And my message.
So, and that really discouraged me.
So I didn't want to talk to my other neighbor.
Well, what if Jesus had that same attitude?
What if Paul had that same attitude, they wouldn't I got
too far and they're preaching, would they?
No Jesus said, you know, shake off your sandals and move on to
the next town so I can listen to you.
I know it's hard to do that, but we have to understand that there
are people out there waiting for us to share the message with
them. And if someone is not
interested, we move on to the next person.
But people are interested in order for us to have this, we
have to have the mentality. We have to empathize with
people. Now I try to put myself in that
situation. And kind of going back to my
analogy of my friends. How would you feel if one of
your best friends? New the way to Salvation and
they were just watching you live your life and you had no idea.
You didn't know much about the Bible, of course, the growing up
growing up in America, you know, a little bit about the Bible and
about Jesus, maybe just in pop culture and your friends over
here going to church every Sunday.
And he gets baptized, he's trying to be the best Christian.
You can't, he never bothers to talk to you about Jesus.
How would you feel that knowing that he knew these things and
didn't share it with you? Would you be upset when he found
out? I think I would be.
Well, sometimes that's us. We need to realize that there
are people who just need to know about God, that just need that
little invitation to get their foot in the door, to hear about
Jesus. We also need earnestness
Tomorrow's not guaranteed. Now I have a lot of plans to do
things in the future and I'm if you're a planner I'm sure you
have a lot of plans. The I want to, I want to go to
this place. I want to travel here.
I want to talk to this person. You know, I want to go preach
over here. If you're a preacher you make me
have your list of places you want to go to maybe even
countries that you want to evangelize to.
And that's great. That's great to have these plans
in these admissions. The reality is the world may end
tomorrow. Jesus May return our life might
be over too. Today, we don't know.
So, if there's someone that, you know, that's lost, maybe someone
in the church, that's wandered away today after church, before
you forget, Send them a text. Hey, how are you doing?
Send them an email. Call them.
Maybe tomorrow, if you're you have the ability.
You go try to go visit. So makeup, make a plan.
Hey, what are you doing tomorrow night?
Do you want to come over for dinner?
You want to meet for lunch? We cannot wait.
We cannot let these opportunities wait.
There's one story that the story I do not say I do not enjoy
sharing but it is important for us to understand.
And this there was a family that I had been talking to and of
course I approached them about doing a Bible study, that's
primarily what I do during the week is, do Bible says with
people. So I said, well, one of the
member one of the People in the marriage can't think of the
name, one of the spouses one was a member one was not okay.
I said it and so I put it out there is that may be decided
with the whole family. But really, I was kind of
thinking about the one person that wasn't a member that was
kind of my angle, but I put it out there.
Hey, let's do a family study and of course, the kids, they were
younger, but still, they were getting closer to the age where
they become remembers. So I put that out there and they
said, you know, that'd be great nose.
Yes. All right.
Great. And as a, the course, how these
things go, how it is here, but in San Diego.
The culture is, everyone will say, yes, but it's more like a
maybe. Oh, yeah, sounds great.
When you want to get together, I'll get back to you.
All right. I love to get together with you,
alright? When you want to get to the, let
me check my schedule and you never hear back from.
Of course, it's just a polite, way of saying yes.
But another there's tell me. No but that's different.
That's different story. Well anyways it was one of those
situations where I said, okay, let's do Bible.
Teddy and they get back to you. All right, so week went by you
know, they didn't get back to me.
So next time I saw him, I brought it up again.
Hey, you still interested in doing a Bible study and I think
it happened three times and the third time, is it, you know
what, it's really not going to work out with our schedule right
now but you can study with our kids because they're free at
this time. Of course I was disappointed,
but I said well, at least I'm going to study with their kids
so I went to Bible say with their kids and of course that
was that was a good thing to do, even though I wanted really
wanted to study. With the husband because he
wasn't a Christian and I believe it was about three, four months
later, he had a heart attack and died. 49 years old.
Never became a Christian greed. To the Bible study was
interested. not saying that if he would study with me, it would
have happened, but Never got a chance and I think I go back and
Replay that was like, should have been more persistent?
You should have tried harder. Of course, I should have But the
same time on his side, he didn't take that opportunity.
Tomorrow is not guaranteed. If someone you know, someone
that you care about is not a Christian, we need to win their
souls for Christ and let them they can be on the side with
Christ. Now I bring us about
Effectiveness and I don't want to stand up here and pretend
like I know all the answers and know how to do things.
Everyone has a method that works for them.
There's a brother that works with me.
In El, Cajon Ali, Assad Regus. You probably heard of him.
He's won or against his brother. He, I don't want to say it, but
he's probably one of the best evangelist we have in the
church. I mean, the man's started more
churches than a lot of preachers of baptized, he just an
excellent, excellent. Evangelist and he's very busy.
but if I tried to, Real evangelize like he did, it
wouldn't feel sincere because I'm not him.
He has his way of doing things, and I have my personality have
totally different personalities. And even the culture is what she
worked. There's different cultures and
different aspects. I'm just saying that if we try a
method and it doesn't work, the answer is not to give up, but to
try another method, the try another angle, if you invite
someone to church and say, you're not really interested in
coming. To church.
Okay? Are you interested in coming to
a Bible study? Are you interested in coming to
a fellowship night? Are you interested?
There's always something else that we can try to get their
foot in the door or don't even ask them.
Just have a conversation with them.
What do you think about Jesus? Do you believe in Jesus?
Are you Christian? Sometimes we just get the ball
rolling. Don't give up after the first
time a failure. That's what winners keep going.
God wants us to keep going Apostle.
Paul. He's because he changed his
method as approach to find the people to bring them to Christ
the win. Then the last thing is we need
everyone involved. There's a lot of great people in
the church who do a lot of great work.
If the church is going to grow and if it's going to grow
exponentially, the reality is everyone needs to be involved.
Everyone needs to be doing their part in Romans.
Chapter 12 Verses 4 through 8 for as in one body.
We have many members, the members do not all have the same
function so we though many are one body in Christ and
individually members of one another.
Having gifts that differ, according to the grace, given to
us, let us use it. If prophecy in proportion to our
faith. If service in our serving, the
one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his
exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the
one who leads with Zeal, the one who does acts of Mercy, With
cheerfulness. Of all the things listed here,
is there anyone in this building?
That could not perform one of these tasks.
Like I said, I don't know everyone here, but I think the
answer is no, everyone here. Can can do one of these things
to serve to encourage to teach to contribute to lead.
To have mercy. Now, I really like this last one
because I funding, I struggle with if someone is really sad,
if someone is really hurting their grieving, they're in pain,
I do my best. But I'm not one to get really
emotional and to start crying and to that's just not me my
wife on the other hand, if she sees someone crying, she'll
start crying. If someone isn't she goes right
over to them and gives them a hug?
You know, we have different roles.
We need people like that who can empathize, who can Comfort, who
can be merciful There are people who are are generous, and
they're in their money and generous in their time, they're
people who are, who are retired, but the still active that can
visit people in the daytime and visit people in the hospital
that those who are working, may not have the time to do that, at
that time. We all have a role to play.
Now, if we're all doing these things, that's where it gets
exciting because we'll see the results.
But going back to the attitude. If we have the attitude that we
are defeated, do you think all these things are going to
happen? Do you think the church is going
to grow? Do you think people are going to
walk in this building and say, you know what these people have
the Light of Christ If we're sitting around talking about,
well it's just so hard and I just don't think we're going to
make it. I don't think you have the
attitude, but I've been places where that is the attitude.
You know you already defeated at that point, we're here to win
souls for Christ, God is on our side.
I mentioned already this morning, not the way to
Salvation is through Jesus. Jesus is the way, the truth and
the life. No one comes to the father,
except through him. We have to believe that, and we
have to accept that people are going to be lost unless
Christian stand up and say no more.
No more not in my community. Not in my household.
No, we're going to win souls for Christ.
We are going to overcome because we have Christ on our site.
Jesus already defeated Satan. God is already declared victory.
Are we going to join the battle? Are we going to get involved?
Or we can accept our role in the church now maybe we've lived a
while and we've been coasting through life.
It's not too late to get back engaged to get back involved.
If you're a member of a church, you're not too old to serve
Christ. You're not too young.
We all have something to contribute.
We thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the
Church of Christ at 22:15 plans. Road in Bakersfield, if you
would like any additional information or you would like to
receive a free Bible correspondence, course by mail.
Please email us at info at True Church of Christ
Bakersfield.com. Our service times are on Sundays
at 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.
Please make plans to join us. We would love for you to be our
honored guest.