Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
All right, just as a way to remind us of where we've been
over the last few days. Our very first night on
Wednesday, we talked at length and preached about having a
greater burden for the lost. We saw the idea that the stakes
dictate the pace. Amen.
The idea that when the stakes are low, that the pace doesn't
have to be as quick. And we use the example of the
NFL, the difference between the Pro Bowl, the Super Bowl,
there's a big difference between the pace because of the stakes.
We talked about the fire department dealing with a fire
where there is no loss of life or no ability or rather
potential for loss of life, and they might hang back a little
bit and contain a fire compared to grushing in all of all other
thoughts abandoned because they're going to save a life.
The stakes, they take the pace. And so we talked about how the
lake of fire should dictate our pace, that we should be going
out and doing everything we can to reach the loss because the
lake of fire is real. And then yesterday we gave you
some verses to be able to encourage you as a soul winner.
I really focus on Second Timothy 17.
For the Lord has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power
and of love and a sound mind. You know what you'll need
tomorrow around 10:00? You'll need power and love and a
sound mind. You know what you need when you
hand somebody a track? Power and love and a sound mind.
And so we take that verse as well as the other verses we
looked at and really hold to those and claim those as our
own. We talked at length yesterday,
really the practical application.
What do we do when we go to the door?
How do we get to the door? We talked about the fact that
doorbell cameras are the new peephole.
They're the digital peephole, if you will, and that people are
honestly watching you go up the walk.
We want to make sure that we are handling ourselves in a way that
we are not embarrassing ourselves or maybe making it
harder for the door to open because of how we handle
ourselves going up. And we talked about when someone
opens the door, how do we handle that conversation?
And then we want to transition them from the general
conversation that we'd love to invite you to church to.
We like to talk to you about more spiritual things because
again, then we do want the people we visit to come to
Liberty Baptist Church. I mean, it's kind of silly to
say that we don't want them to come to Liberty Baptist Church.
Of course we want them to be able to come to church on
Sunday. That's why we visit on Saturday
because we want to really get it in their mind on Saturday to be
able to come the next day. You can visit on Tuesday, You
can visit on Thursdays. We've done some of those things
over the years, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong
with it, but I found that sometimes when you give the Word
of God on Tuesday and Thursday, it gives time for the birds to
snatch away that seed of the Word of God before Sunday comes.
And so on Saturday, it's already on their Monday mind about
Sunday. Again, there's no right or wrong
way to do it. The Bible doesn't say thou shalt
make visits on Saturday. It doesn't say, I'm sure the
Lord is pleased no matter when we give the gospel.
But I do find practically it does help us on Saturday to go
into Sunday. But we more than just wanting
them to come to church, we really want them to get saved.
I mean, that's really why we're out there.
And I couldn't imagine being able to lead someone to Christ.
And let's say maybe a few weeks later they move away to a
different region, to a different place.
They can't come to church here. And we say, boy, what a waste of
time. We want someone to Christ.
And they didn't even come to Liberty Baptist Church.
I can't even imagine having that attitude because we may not see
them again, but we will see them in heaven and certainly rejoice
And that we were able to be used in that way.
And so we talked about transitioning that conversation.
And really where we ended was on the page.
I wish I'd put page numbers on this, but if you have your
booklet here, we ended on the page that says how to ask
someone about salvation. And we ended with the two
important questions. Do you remember those?
We talked about this last night. Are you 100% sure that you'd go
to heaven when you pass from this life?
And there'll be some people that will say, I hope so.
I, I wish I knew those types of answers.
And there's some people who will answer in the affirmative.
They'll say absolutely. And of course, in our heart, we
want to rejoice at that because certainly we think that's a
wonderful thing. And on its face it is a
wonderful thing. But we do have to dial down a
little bit or dig down a little bit, maybe will be the better
way of saying it to really understand.
What do they mean about their assurance that they are going to
heaven? Because again, as I said last
night, and I know we're kind of laying the groundwork again, but
I do think it's important for us to be able to do that.
We want to make sure that we understand and that they
understand what they're talking about.
Are they sure they're going to heaven because they're good
works? Are they sure they're going to
heaven because they're a good Catholic?
Are they sure they're going to heaven because they give money
to philanthropic opportunities? Is this why they think they're
going to heaven? And so that second question is,
if you were asked why should you go into heaven at the gates of
heaven? Well, what would you say?
What would your answer be? And of course, again, admitting
that we know that's not the way salvation works, but it is a way
to illuminate exactly why that person thinks they are going to
heaven. And so we ended there at that
bullet point that says ask 2 important questions.
And then below that as we continue it says answer
according to their response. So you could say, do you mind if
I take a few moments to show you from the Bible how you can know
for sure we have eternal life? And I do think it's good to ask
them that question because if they just say no outright, it
may be they're just not ready to be able to hear the word.
But you can launch into the conversation however you want.
But sometimes a transitional statement will be good like
that. Or maybe it's very obvious that
they're busy. Maybe, again, it just seems like
they're not quite focused on exactly what you're saying.
And again, we don't want to pick the fruit before it's ripe.
We want to make sure that the Holy Spirit's truly at work.
And it could be something like this.
Hey, you know, it seems like there's a lot of distractions
here at the house right now. It seems like you got a lot
going on. Maybe they say something like
this. Well, I was actually just
heading out to the store. I got an appointment here in 20
minutes. That's an opportunity for you to
say, well, would it be all right if we came back next week or
we'll be OK if I gave your information to our pastor, maybe
he gave you a call and and he would be able to set something
up. That's something that you can
do. Again, I don't want to say don't
take no for an answer because that sounds like a salesman and
his approach again, putting the foot in the door as the doors
closing, That's not we're trying to do.
But I would say don't always take the answers of the people
you're talking to at face value because a lot of times they will
have because of their own anxiousness.
And sometimes we forget this. Imagine how anxious you may be
talking to someone about the Lord.
They're anxious about talking to the Lord with you.
And so they may answer in a way that's not entirely honest even
to their own selves. And we may say that they're not
interested. Well, don't necessarily just
take it for face value. They're not interested getting
we're not pushy, we're not salesman, But you can just maybe
push back on that a little bit and just say, oh, you're not
interested. OK, I guess not.
You could even say something. Well, you know, there was a time
in my life I was interested too. And I think about many years in
my life where I push the Lord away and you know, Are you sure
this isn't something you'd like to talk about today?
And then if they continued, you would know that that's not the
appropriate time and response. So I can answer according to
their response, those questions that we gave you.
Now here's some general applications about talking to
someone about the Lord when you get into the specific verses
here in just a moment, That's really the the really the meat
of what we need to talk about. But again, we're getting
ourselves to this place so that we understand how to have this
conversation. So when talking to someone about
the Lord, first of all, recognize distracting questions.
And what I mean by that is as you were talking to someone
about the Lord, they will say something like this.
You know, I've always wondered, they'll say, you know, Pastor,
I've always wondered, where did you know, where did Cain and
Abel get their wives from? And that's not necessarily a bad
question, but it's probably not the question we want to address
right now. They'll even say something, you
know, have you ever thought about how many angels fit on the
head of a pen? You know, those kind of
questions. And what you want to do is say
something like this, You know, that's not a bad question.
But why don't we put this off to the side for just a minute?
Because I, I really want to make sure we can talk to you about
what I want to talk to you about today.
And every time someone asks me one of those questions and, and
oftentimes they're heartfelt, they're earnest.
I had someone expressed to me some time ago about questions
about, you know, vegetarianism and veganism and the Bible and
those kind of things. And it's like, you know, that's
a great question and we can get to that later.
But can I really finish what we want to talk about, You know,
what we're talking about first? And every time someone has
started with one of those distracting questions, if they
do get to the place where they trust Jesus Christ their Savior,
99 times out of 100, they don't care about that question
anymore. It's just the fact that now they
know Jesus Christ. It's like, you know what, that
that'll work itself out. And so recognize those
distracting questions and don't feel that you have to run down
every rabbit that everyone puts in front of you when you're
talking to them about the Lord. I put there, bounce the
basketball. What that means is, you know,
just because they say no to something again, kind of bounce
the basketball, kind of keep going at it.
And that we were taught in Bible college, you know, three
different times. You try to continue to talk to
them about the Lord before you give up.
I don't know. There's no biblical number for
what it should be. You should just be Spirit led
and understanding, but just kind of keep going at it a little bit
just because they say no, you know.
Well, I understand how you feel. I felt like that myself in the
past, you know, do you believe that this is something that you
need to do today to trust Jesus Christ?
Well, I don't know that I need to do that today.
Well, don't just say, oh, well, then maybe another day.
Maybe say, well, what? What would hinder you today from
trusting Jesus Christ your Savior to ask those kind of
probing questions and not to just fold when they give you
some sort of resistance? Again, we're not trying to push
people to salvation. You can't truly push someone to
salvation. If you do, then you have made a
convert. The Lord hasn't made the
convert. We're not trying to push people
in that. But at the same time, just
because someone gives a little bit of resistance doesn't mean
we just fold and say, well, I guess I'll talk to you some
other time. It is a back and forth.
So bounce the basketball a little bit.
Avoid yes or no questions. This is a big one.
You know, you can just go through and have a conversation
with somebody and ask them, do you understand what this verse
says? Yes.
Do you understand what this verse says?
Yes. Do you understand what this
verse says? Yes.
Do you want to get saved? Yes.
And by the time they're done, they don't even know what you're
talking about because they're just, you're just asking them
yes or no questions. And so take the questions and
ask them in an open-ended way. What do you believe your eternal
state will be? That's a great way to start, you
know, if you were to die today and then continue on as we see
some of the questions or some of the statements about sin and
about judgment and about salvation through Jesus Christ.
Don't just ask again those yes or no questions.
Find ways to ask those questions in a Broadway so that you can
understand what they're thinking is because remember, we want to
know what they're thinking. And you can't understand what
they're thinking if you're just asking yes or no questions
because they're just go yes, yes, no, yes, yes, no.
And they're going to walk away and you're going to walk away
and nobody knows what anybody was talking about.
So try to ask those open-ended questions.
Next, explain Bible words. There are, and I put the quotes
around Bible words there. There are words that oftentimes
can be confusing. In fact, we'll look on the next
page. But God commendeth his love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
We oftentimes take for granted what that word commendeth means.
But if you're showing someone the Scriptures for the first
time, they may not understand what that means, that Bible
word. And so it just takes a few
seconds to be able to explain what that word means.
And so I have to remind myself this in preaching all the time
is that here I am on a Sunday morning, particularly when you
have lost people you have newly saved.
You have people from all over the spectrum of belief in Jesus
Christ or non belief in Jesus Christ.
And oftentimes I have to go very basic in some of the things that
I talked about even this Sunday, just in preparation yesterday
and today for Sunday morning's message.
Christ is servant. We're in the book of Mark and
looking at the fact that Jesus didn't come to be served, but to
be a servant and to give his life as a ransom for many.
We're probably going to go to Philippians chapter 2 and take
some time there. Now, a lot of you will say
Philippians chapter 2 again, how many times, Pastor, let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus?
Some of you heard me recite that over and over again.
But I have to recognize there's a lot of people who are newer in
the faith. There's a lot of people who
aren't saved. And so I've got to always go
back to the basics and make sure we're all together.
And so sometimes maybe on Sunday morning, Pastor, did you just
fill this in because you didn't know where else to go in the
Bible? It's like, well, I know a lot of
places to go in the Bible to be able to illustrate the fact that
Christ is servant, but I want to maybe go to the most profound
section of Scripture that maybe you're familiar with, but
someone else isn't. So don't take for granted in
saying that. Don't take for granted that you
understand what words like commendeth mean, but you can
look at the word propitiation. I'm thinking of first John
chapter #2 you use that word propitiation.
Someone's eyes glaze over. Your eyes may glaze over, I
don't know, but it's the substitute payment made on
behalf of someone else. And so that's what that is.
And there's ways to be able to explain those things.
And so explain Bible words again.
Make it personal. Talk about you again, not talk
about you like you love yourself so much, but you have a
testimony, you have a story. You had the same objections, you
had the same questions very likely.
And so relate to that person. Don't just come down thundering
from high to them and explain to them what they need to do.
Show them. Listen, I was where you were at.
I had the same questions. In fact, I wanted nothing to do
with church. I wanted nothing to do with
Jesus. I was a Catholic for X amount of
years and many of you, that's your testimony.
But I got out of that and for a while I didn't know who Jesus
really was because of what I was taught.
I didn't know what salvation was because I was taught.
But then I found out that it really wasn't about the Catholic
way or the Baptist way. And you hear me say that often
here in particular on a Sunday morning, but it's about the
Bible way of accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior.
And we just happen to believe his Baptist to believe in things
the Bible way. And so that's why we do what the
Bible says, but overcome some of that.
Because you and I, when we give these verses, we understand what
we're talking about. But to them immediately in their
mind, they're thinking something like this.
So I have to become a Baptist. I'm going to have to go to
church. I'll have to go to all these
different things. These are the things that need
to be put off to the side. What they truly need to
understand is they need Jesus because they're going to die and
split hell wide open if they don't receive forgiveness for
their sins. And that's what they need to
understand. And oftentimes literally after
they are new creatures, those things just come naturally as
they are taught because now they are saved.
Now they have the Holy Spirit living inside of them.
Have your own Bible ready. And Mark, this is a big one and
I hope you have your Bible ready because we're going to start
looking at several verses here in just a moment down the Romans
Rd. But in my own Bible, and I know
the Romans Rd. I've shared it more times than I
can tell you in my Bible, I have the Romans Rd. marked.
And after every place I show where the next verse is.
You know why? Because I'm in the middle of
talking with somebody. Sometimes I can confuse myself.
I know it's hard to believe that I can confuse myself, but there
are times that even as I'm giving the verses, I don't know
where to go because I'm talking them.
A lot of times as I'm sharing in my office with somebody, I'm
reading my Bible upside down, which makes it even worse.
And I'm trying to show them what the Bible says.
And so write those verses down again.
Don't, don't feel bad about marking up your Bible.
We're not talking about taking a crayon and going through your
Bible like this. We're talking about taking a pen
and writing different verses and underlining them.
And don't feel bad about that because a book, a Bible that is
worn out, I've heard said probably belongs to a Christian
that's not worn out the ideas. And I know we get tired, those
kind of things, but the idea is, is that when you see a Bible has
been well used, you can see someone that's had a walk with
the Lord. And so I think that's an
appropriate thing. Well, let's really get to the
next two pages and that's taking a walk down the Romans road.
Now I want to make this abundantly clear.
I have this right at the top. Note this understand that
salvation is not dependent on showing these exact verses in
this exact order. There are people that will say
unless you show these verses in this order and say it this way
then someone can't get saved again.
That is taking the gospel and changing it into something else
than what it is. The Romans Rd. is a great way to
show the basics of the gospel in very close proximity to one
another in a very particular order.
However, you can find the gospel from Genesis to Revelation.
You are not confined to showing people these verses.
However, you can show these verses and you can give a very
basic understanding by just flipping a few pages in your
Bible and you will find that it will be very, very helpful.
Again, we do not want to create an extra barrier to salvation
because what if someone says, well, I didn't read these verses
in this order, Am I really saved?
Good heavens, no, that's not what we're trying to say here
tonight. But these verses are helpful to
be able to show us what the gospel is all about.
And you can do it within 5 to 10 pages of your Bible, depending
on how big your type is and how big your Bible is.
So first of all, we're going to start in John 316.
That is not in the book of Romans.
You don't have to turn there because I think you're pretty
familiar with John 316 and that's a great place to start.
You know why almost everybody knows John 316.
Even a heathen knows John 316. You look at it, NFL game and you
know what they have in the end zone.
Somebody brought a sheet and put with spray paint John 316.
At least they used to do that. Why?
Because it's just the most common of verses that everyone
knows. And so you can remind someone,
this is where you need to start. God loves you.
That's the basis of everything that is to follow.
They need to understand that God loves them.
We understand this, but there are people who maybe don't
understand the concept of God's great love.
You can even go to Romans 5 verse 8 where it talks about,
well, right before Romans 58 where it talks about the fact
that some would not die, most would not die for someone else
who is sinful, but God commendeth His love toward us in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
So start right there in my estimation.
Again, you don't have to do this, but when I'm showing
people the gospel, I typically start by reciting John 316 the
next we are sinners. We are sinners.
Turn to Romans 310 if you would. Let's go ahead and look at this
road together now as you're turning there and had a good
conversation with Brother Joe about this couple weeks ago.
You know, it's interesting. Almost everybody you talk to,
they will admit they're a Sinner.
I would say this deep down in everyone's heart, in the
conscience, and this is the conversation we were having talk
about from the beginning of the book of Romans.
In the conscience God has implanted in them the knowledge
there is God, but also that they're sinners, that's
implanted upon them. Here's the problem.
Every once in a while someone in their pride and arrogance will
not want to admit that which they know in their heart, but
they won't admit it to you. And if they can't admit the fact
they're a Sinner, you can't go on because what are they getting
saved from? They need to understand that
they are a Sinner. I was talking with Brother John
Kelly last night about a soul winning opportunity he had years
ago and he was going into someone's house.
Another soul winner. And I hesitate to tell you the
story because some of you will hear the story and say, well, I
don't want to go out of visitation if this is what it's
like. But this is a kind of a one in a
million kind of thing. They went in, they started
having a conversation and they started with the idea that
they're a Sinner. And the man literally got up and
said get out, don't say that about me, get out.
And Brother John said last night, you know, maybe the man
had a bad day, maybe we got there at a bad time.
I don't know, but he said this is over.
I'm not talking to you about the fact that I'm a Sinner, but yet
the Bible makes it clear all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. By the way, that's not me saying
it all right. Look at Romans chapter #3 and
verse #10 where it says this. As is written, there is none
righteous. No, not one drop down to verse
#23 for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Now, interestingly enough, those two verses in the book of Romans
are both first found in the book of Psalms.
These are being retold by Paul. Romans 10 or Romans 310 comes
from Psalm 53, verse 3. Romans 323 comes from Psalm 130
verse 3. These are not new concepts.
These are Old Testament concepts brought into the New Testament
time. The person must understand
they're a Sinner. And again, there can come a time
where they have had their conscience seared with a hot
iron, where they have been given over to a reprobate mind, Romans
chapter 1, and they won't even believe they're a Sinner
anymore. Or they probably did once
because it was written upon their heart.
But they've gotten so far in stiff arming God that they
refuse to be able to admit the very basis of the fact that
they're sinners. But let's be honest, most people
you talk to, you don't need to go to the 10 commandments.
You don't need to ask what they are lied.
You don't need to ask what they ever stole.
You only ask them that they ever cussed.
You say, are you a Sinner? Yeah.
You want to talk about that? 99 out of 100, that number that
I told you just a few moments ago, 99 out of 100 people, when
I say the Bible says you're a Sinner, they look at me go, Yep.
But at the same time, they do need to understand that and
understand that the Bible tells them that and understand that
their sin is a transgression against God.
They have transgressed against God.
So Romans 310, Romans 323, great place to start.
You can mark those in your Bible and then if you want to, you can
mark Romans 320, or rather the Romans 623.
Now I do do this a little differently than other people.
Again, this is just how I do this.
And so you can take this for what it is.
You can take it or leave it. This is free here tonight.
Literally in every conceivable way, what I'm giving you is
free. But I do do this on purpose
because I want to really walk people through the explanation
of what the gospel is. The Word says in Romans 623, it
says this for the wages of sin is death.
And I say stop right there. I do this every single time.
The wages of sin is death. And I asked him stuff, don't
keep reading because the good news is coming.
I don't want to see the good news yet.
I want to see the bad news because I need to understand to
understand what the bad news is. And this is the part where I
will explain what is a wage. And so let me just ask you here
tonight a little bit of a question and answer time.
And we did this last night for a little bit.
How would you explain a wage, a payment beyond that?
And so we want to broaden that out a little bit.
That's a good start. But a payment for what?
Because a donation could be a payment.
What? What would you say?
A reward? That's it.
An exchange earning. I'm gonna put these two
together. Yeah, you are.
You are getting paid for something you earned, for
something that you did. Because that's what a wage is.
Because if I just gave Vince here, by the way, by the way,
welcome back, Vince. Good to see you.
And so he he was really hoping I'd call him out here tonight.
I could tell it. Look at that.
Look at that face.
All right. And so carved by the angels.
All right. So anyway, yeah.
So that's, I want to embarrass you, but I think you just liked
it more. But so if I just gave him $100
because, you know, a man, you know what I'm saying?
That's not a wage. That's a gift.
Or we'll get to the gift. Don't go to the second-half of
the verse. A wage is something that you
earn. And so I'll say to the person,
you know, if you were working for two weeks, what would you
receive? Well, I'd receive my my wages,
my paycheck. Well, why did you get your
wages? Well, because I worked for two
weeks and I got a two week paycheck, a two week wage.
So that's right. Now what if you didn't work for
those two weeks? Let's take PTO, vacation, all
that other stuff out of it. What if you didn't work for two
weeks? Would you get a wage?
No. Why?
Because you didn't work. And so the next step is
understanding this. You've been working and working
and working your whole life spiritually, say working at what
sin you've been working. That's what it is.
And what is that sin? What does it cost us?
The wages of sin is death and we explain what the second death is
that we explain as we saw from the Book of Revelation, this is
not just you die and then you were gone that the Bible says
that there's born to man. It's been appointed on the man
wants to die. And after this, the judgment
that it's not just that you go into the ground and that is it
that the payment for the sin of your unbelief, the payment for
the sin of your life is what judgment.
Here's what you're going to want to do.
You're not going to want to talk about judgment.
You're not going to want to use the term hell, we talked about
this. We're not going to want to talk
about it. But you have to talk about it.
You have to say it. Why?
Because you are doing them a grave disservice if you don't
tell them there's a penalty. You are basically withholding
that which they need. What does the Book of Jude say?
Some are saved by the fire. They literally are.
The fact that hell is real is what's going to push them
towards the fact that they need to be saved.
You say, well, I don't want to scare him.
Well, somebody needs to scare him.
No, I'm not trying to be weird about it, but I'm saying they
need to know there's something to be more than just scared of.
Like I'm knocking my knees together.
There needs to be real fear in their heart that there is
judgment that is real. And we can't just hide the ball.
And I think sometimes we do that because we don't want to be
offensive. We don't know how they're going
to understand it. But if the Spirit, if the
Spirit's working in their heart and the Spirit is responding to
your truth, not not your truth, boy, we want to be careful how
we say that because of your truth, my truth, but the truth
of which you are speaking from the word of God, isn't the
Spirit going to say to them, yeah, that's you.
That's you. Trust the Spirit, trust the
word. Now, that doesn't mean that you
have to say it in a way that is unkind.
That doesn't mean that you have to say it in a way that is
inappropriate. But you need to tell them the
wages of your sin, what you have earned for this life is death.
And that's where I stopped right there.
And that's important because we want to contrast it in a few
moments with the second-half of the verse.
And so usually I'll say something like this.
That's pretty bad news, isn't it?
And they go, Oh, yeah, it's pretty bad news.
What would happen if I left right now?
Oh, boy. You'd be pretty bad, pastor.
Exactly. But the good news is there's
more to it, that you have to understand the bad news before
you understand the good news. You have to know that there's a
problem before you have an answer.
You have to know that there is an antidote to that, which is
the poison of your soul. This is what you need to know.
And so that's when I go backwards to Romans 5/8.
So go back in chapter, if you would, to Romans chapter 5,
verse 8, and you can even go to verse number six.
Why don't you go up there? I just referenced this a few
moments ago. I recited it at least in
summary, verse 6 for when we were yet without strength, in
due time, Christ died for the ungodly.
So who are the ungodly? Everybody who did Christ die for
the ungodly. Now would anybody else do that?
Well, it says in verse #7 for scarcely for a righteous man
will one die. Yet per adventure for a good
man, some would even dare to die.
The idea is it takes someone of a very special nature to die on
behalf of someone else. We understand I've used this
verse before in giving commendation to veterans,
particularly those who have given their lives.
I've done that here in our town before.
Use this verse for a town Memorial Day service.
Why? Because I'm saying that it takes
a special person to be able to sign on the line that they're
willing to give their life for someone else.
But even then, there's reservation.
There could be hesitation. Now imagine that person who was
giving their life on the line knew everything about the other
person before they had to give up their life.
I think there'd be a lot more hesitancy, wouldn't there?
What if that person actively hated them?
Even more hesitation. But Christ knew all of this
about us and still went to the cross.
Christ knew they would buffet him.
Christ knew they would spit on him.
Christ knew that they would nail Him to the cross and put the
crown of thorns upon him. And not just those people, but
that all of humanity would gather together, if you will, in
placing Him on that cross because of our sin.
But look at what verse 8 says. But God commendeth.
And really the best way that you can explain that very quickly
is, well, God shows, God shows. That's it.
I would say that's a very quick way of explaining that.
But God showed his love. How did God show his love?
We, we went back to John 316 and it said that God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son.
And here it's nailed down literally when it says that he
showed his love toward us. Even though we were sinners,
Christ died for us. Now we're getting to some good
news, aren't we? The bad news was before we're
sinners. The good news is Christ, knowing
we were sinners anyway, still went to the cross because he
loves you. And that's where you could start
to really see the wheels turn in people's heads.
That's where you can start to see in their minds that there's
something here because they're starting to put pieces of the
gospel together. Now, there could be times when
people have questions about works and how works is involved
in that. Ephesians 289 is a great place
to take people to understand that it's not about the works
that we have done. Titus is the same way.
And we'll have these verses for you just a moment that you could
take people so that they can understand that it's not the
fact that you can work. But we're really going to also
nail that down here with our next verse because we're going
to go back to Romans 623. So go back to Romans 623 because
I'll say something like this. Remember when I told you to stop
reading that verse? Well, now we've got to read the
end of the verse because the end of the verse has the good news.
So the wages of sin is death. And what's the wage?
It's something that you have earned for that what you've
done. But and perhaps the greatest
conjunction in the Bible is right there because we know the
ways of sin is death, but however, the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And this is where it's important to bring out the difference
between a wage and a gift because this is where they need
to understand that it's not about works, that it's about the
free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
And every time I talk to someone about this, first I find
something that's nearby. I find a pen, I find a bottle of
water. I've used my car keys before,
whatever it is. And I will say to the person
something like this, imagine, you know, I want to give this
water bottle to you as a gift. Not much of A gift because I've
already been drinking out of it. But Vince, you know, I want to
give this to you and it's a gift.
When does this gift belong to you?
And almost every time I talk to somebody, they'll say something
like this. It's when you give it to me.
And the answer is that's incorrect.
Because what if I went up to Vince and said, hey, here's my
water bottle. I was like drank out of it.
I don't, I don't want it. It's like, no, I want you to
take it. I don't want it.
Said, listen, I'll kick you in the hip if you don't take it.
All right? He says he's at the good hip or
the bad hip. So I said you don't want he
doesn't want. I can literally put it into his
chest and he can put his arms down.
He can get up and walk away. And the bottle's on the floor.
It's not his. Do you know when?
No, don't. Don't move.
All right. Yeah.
Be careful. Yes.
You won't hurt somebody. You know when it belongs to him.
And this is where the light bulb usually clicks.
It's when you take it, receive it, accept it.
Exactly. That's when it belongs to you.
Historically, A pardon can be given, but if a pardon by a
president is not accepted, and there's been examples of this,
that the pardons have none effect.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln gave more than one
pardon that was not accepted by those who are pardoned.
And those men still went to their death because they
refused, because in their heart they believe they deserve that
which they were being pardoned for.
And out of honor, they refused to be able to receive the pardon
and died. And so here's the issue.
And I'll say to someone this very thing, Jesus Christ is
holding out to you something better than the water bottle or
pen or car keys, whatever I have around me.
So he's holding out the gift of salvation.
And what do you need to do? Well, I need to accept it.
You can make it yours. And here's what they have to
understand. Now, if you, if you pay me for
that water bottle, is it a gift anymore?
No, what if you give me a water bottle later because I gave you
a water bottle today? No, a gift is a gift is a gift
is a gift. I'll even say, could you imagine
me on Christmas Day having all these gifts out for my children?
And I've used this illustration, I believe here in preaching.
You know, Diane and I, you know, we earn the money.
We put the gifts out there. All the kids unwrap everything.
And then when they're done, I take a little envelope and I
hand it to Bethany, and I hand it to Kaylee, and I hand it to
AJ and I hand it to Peyton. Now I got to hand it to Carter
and I have to hand to Casey. I had to hand them all out and
they say, what's this? What's this, Dad?
It's an invoice For what? Well, I mean, how do you think
we're going to pay for this? I mean, we got it on.
We got it on 30 day credit. So we got to get this going, you
know what I'm saying? So you guys are going to
reimburse me as soon as you can say.
But that's not a gift, right? It's not a gift.
And if you have to work for your salvation, it's not a gift
anymore. What are you getting into?
You're getting into wage territory.
What do wages earn you? Death And so when you get to
that point where you have told somebody that Jesus Christ is
holding out the gift of salvation, I'll ask him a
question like this. Oh, actually, let's go to Romans
10. Let's go ahead and, and, and go
there first. You can see I'm all over the
place. But the idea is again, that you
don't. This is not a track that you
need to go on like a railroad. In some ways this is a bowl of
spaghetti in the sense that as long as it's all there in the
bowl, as long as you are getting what needs to be there, We don't
have to do this in the order we don't have to be able to use
these exact verses at this exact time.
We want to present to them this. What's great about the Romans
Rd. is that it helps us be able to keep these things in our mind
and go from one to another to another.
So what do you need to do? Romans 10910 and 13 It says
this, that if thou shalt confess thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and
shall believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
in the righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
into salvation. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And what's important about verses 9 and 10 particularly is
that it's not just about the mouth, it's about the heart that
both have to be engaged. Because I'll talk to people who
say, I'd say, have you ever done anything like this before you
ever called upon Christ to save you?
And a Catholic will say, I do it every week, I do it all the
time. And the question is this is that
this is not something that you do all the time.
And you have to kind of go back and show them that this is
something that you have to do one time.
And then after that, we still sin, but we're still part of the
family of God. And we explain that to them.
But we make clear this is not just me having you read a little
prayer and reciting this prayer. Because if that was the case,
I'd hand out cards. Everybody said just just say
this, just say this, just say this.
And they have no belief in their heart whatsoever.
They're just repeating something that's on a card.
And that's not what it's about, about what you pray.
And the other good news about it as well is that some people will
say, well, what if I don't say the right words?
What if my prayer is not good enough because they're afraid
about praying? Well, you tell what you do the
best that you can, but listen, it's got to come from the heart
and God sees your heart. And so you pray and you do that.
And that's why I try to be very careful even in leading someone
in prayer and say and leading them in prayer and having them
repeat after me. I know people do that.
I'm not saying you can't do it, but I just want them from their
heart to be able, even if it's to themselves.
They don't have to do out loud so that I hear every word.
I just want them to know that this is what they need to do.
Verse 13 for whosoever I always say, and verse 13 just
summarizes it all. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Call upon the Lord today to save you.
And so at that point, I have here on the, on the next page,
Second Corinthians 79 and 10 comes to mind here where it
talks about the idea of what true repentance is.
We're not just talking about someone feeling guilty.
We're also not talking about someone working for their
salvation. Again, that's, that's penance.
That's what the Catholic Church teaches.
You do a little bit more, a little bit more, you climb up
the stairs, you know, you do a, a rosary, a Hail Mary, you know,
Saint Christopher, St. Anthony, whatever it is, you
pray to the Saints and then you're good.
No, that's penance. We're talking about turning from
unbelief to belief in Jesus Christ and understanding these
that this is what we're talking about.
So we bring them to this place decision.
Have you done this before? It's a one time decision.
And so I'll ask him this. According to what the Bible
says, what do you need to do today?
According to what you just read, what do you need to do?
And I remember just talking a few weeks ago in the backroom
with Logan and he says, I need to, I need to, I need to get
saved. And just that conviction of,
well, this is what it says and this is what I need to do.
And it's a wonderful thing. And again, I have here, pray
yourself and allow them to pray. I always try to pray first.
If someone wants to ask Jesus to save them, I'll say, would you,
would you like me to pray first? Sometimes that gives them
courage to be able to pray. And if they pray out loud, but
again, they do not have to pray out loud.
That's not what it says. I know it says that, hear that,
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
Certainly once they get saved, they're going to be confessing
the Lord Jesus. All right, that's the case.
That does not mean that they have to pray out louder.
They can't be saved. I don't believe that is what
that means. But I do think that they will
give credibility to that which they've said right after.
Because oftentimes I will ask them, what did you just pray?
And they'll say, I just asked Jesus to save me.
That's not confessing with the mouth.
I don't know what is. They're saying I just got saved.
So praise the Lord for that. And again, there are no exact
words or form of a sinner's prayer that must be uttered.
Again, the idea of the sinner's prayer, you know you're Jesus.
I know that I'm a Sinner. Again, there are people who pray
that. There's nothing wrong with that.
But those words formed in that particular way is not what saves
somebody, because we have to be careful because that can end up
turning into something of which the Bible is not teaching.
So we have to be very careful about that.
There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself.
But we can't say, well, if somebody doesn't pray that
prayer, well, do they really get saved?
Well, you can't find that sinner's prayer in those words
anywhere in the Gospels or the book of Acts.
So what do we say? We say, well, these are the
principles that they have to accept of the gospel to be
saved. And you'll often find that
people will when they trust Christ and they're excited, it's
a wonderful thing. And next follow up with a
decision that was just made. The very first thing I say is
when you came in here, what would have, what would you, what
would happen if you'd passed away?
You know, today, as awful as is to think about what would have
happened before I said, well, I would have gone to hell well
after what just happened. What, what, where are you?
Where would you go now? Why go to heaven?
Why? Because Jesus saved me.
Now I'll tell you, there's probably no better words you can
ever hear anybody say than to hear them say that they
understand that they just pass from death into life because
that's a wonderful thing. I try to share verses about
eternal security as I as I can. I know we've talked about that
before, but I always try to explain that even though because
sometimes they'll think, well, if I send the next day, I need
to do this again, especially they come from a Catholic
background. And so I try to remind them,
John first, John 512 and 13, you can read those later.
But I do try to remind them of the fact that, well, just
because you have transgressed doesn't mean you've left the
family. You are part of the family now.
You've been adopted into the family.
And that's important because I can transgress against my
father, but my father cannot say to me, you're not my son
anymore. We'll take that back.
He can say you're not my son anymore.
But as the old saying goes, the DNA says.
I belong to him. Once you're saved, guess what?
You belong to Christ. Now here's the issue.
If I transgress against my father and I come up to him 30
minutes later and say, hey dad, could I have something from you?
He says, are we not going to deal with the problem that we
have here? What do we have?
We have a problem with fellowship and that's why we
need to get right with the Lord and confess our sins so we can
have fellowship again. That's a different issue.
And so I try to bring that up to them as well.
Get them, ask them to come to church on Sunday, get
information so the church can follow up.
These are very important things. Now I have a handout for you
that I want to give you, and I mentioned this the last couple
nights that these are items of Brother Dan.
Maybe you could hand these out. These are verses that are soul
winning helps you can cut this out and it fits really well in
the front or the back of your Bible.
And if you're ever looking for help with this, go ahead,
brother. This is a this is a great
resource for you. I was given this several years
ago and I hope it'll be a help to you.
And this is verses that are just outside the book of Romans as
well. So they're not just in the book
of Romans, but outside the book of Romans and they can help you
with some of the things that we just looked at.
So I know that that's a very quick way of going through it,
but I hope maybe you've never had that explained to you before
from your perspective of how to be able to explain to somebody,
maybe there's something you can watch.
Again, that would certainly be a wonderful thing.
But I will say there's a great way that you can go through how
to show someone's salvation without knowing all the verses,
and that's by grabbing a track. You know what happens on all of
our tracks, whether you have this welcome track, there's a
track that we have here for Resurrection Sunday coming up.
There's our thank you track. These are great at restaurants.
We'll talk about those in just a minute.
Just use one yesterday with that, a longer form track.
Are you good enough for salvation?
This is a great one. It's probably one of my
favorites. And then even the door hangers
on the back. You know what you can do?
You just follow through with these verses right here and you
always have one of these close to you.
That should be a help. All right, I know I went through
a lot with you there in just a few minutes.
They may have any questions about what I just said.
I know there could probably be a lot, but I want to take about 5
minutes or 10 minutes and answer those questions that will go to
the last page. Anybody or there could be no
questions that's fine too. All right, you never know that's
fine, he said. Pastor, you explain that so well
that there was no so you know it here's the thing there's always
place to learn. There's always place to grow.
Even I've found myself in the way that I talk to people and
different things like that. I want to get better.
That's my desire. And so you may say to yourself,
well, I don't know that I would do this very well.
There's only one way to get to the place of doing this well is
to do it, is to do it. You'll never do it.
Well, if you never do it, what do you got to do?
You got to get some reps in. You got to get some swings in.
That's what you need to do. And I'm talking about practicing
on other people, no role-playing, all right.
But the idea of that you just need to talk to people about the
Lord. And that's what's really going
to help. And I have seen churches where
they said, well, let's get into a room and we'll put two people
table and you pretend like you're you're say you're unsafe.
You pretend. And first of all, like we're all
weirded out about this to begin with.
And that's even worse. It's like, all right, pretend
you're a heathen. Go.
So it's a that's not great. OK, you're a Buddhist that had
questions about Jesus, but you had trauma in your background.
No go. All right, that's that's not we
don't want to do that. All right.
The idea is just get out there and do the very best you can and
the Lord overtime will honor think he will honor your
commitment. He will honor your heart.
You were going to make some mistakes, but again, remind
yourself you were planting, you were watering.
God gives the increase. I don't want to say this in a
way that makes you feel strange, but it's not all on you
understand this. It's not all in you one, it's
the spirit that's the work in their heart.
It's all the spirit. You can't, you can't get to
these so perfectly that all of a sudden they they have to get
saved. It has to be the spirit work in
their heart. But also understand this,
there's other people along the way you have also been sharing
the gospel and you are just one cog in the great mechanism that
God has in place in their life. And again, I'm not saying it's
not important. It's so important.
It's eternally important. But sometimes maybe we can feel
the weight of that eternal importance so much that we lock
up and just don't do anything. Just get out there and try to
talk to people about the Lord. And the best way to do that
really comes to our last page because as I mentioned here just
last night, there's really two ways.
And it's interesting that we spend the least amount of time
on the second way. But we talked about the
organized church soul winning visitation program, that we have
special days that we have organized visitation, that we
have a back to school bash where we preach to people.
These are the kind of things that we do.
Certainly this is important. But as I mentioned last night,
if you were only giving the gospel one or two hours a month,
you've missed out on that which God has called you to do That
Giving the gospel is something that we do with our lives.
It's not just something that we do when the church has called us
to do this together. That's why we have many
different kinds of tracks. I have actually have a couple
different ones that are on order right now because we're getting
low. But we always keep tracks in the
back. They don't often need to be
refilled. And one of the reasons why is
because they don't always go as fast as we want them to go.
But you say, Pastor, what if I take all of the last tracks?
Then let me know. You take all the rest of them.
We'll order more and we'll give out more.
What's the worst thing to happen?
Boy, we gave out too many tracks this month.
I would love for that to be the case.
Just know if you take them, you know, kind of want to give them
to somebody, right? Don't use them as coasters for
your Pepsi or something like that at home.
OK? This is something you want to
give out to people. So where can you hand out
tracks? Where can you hand them out?
The restaurant? I'll tell you that the best
place, the easiest place you can hand out a track.
Everybody can start here at a restaurant.
Now me remind you their tip is not the track you want to make
sure they don't read it. Then leave them a 0 tip and tell
them God loves you. OK, God loves them and so tip
them well. I leave a track.
I always try to make sure I tip well because I want them to be
able to be more receptive to that which I've left you say,
but I might have to give them extra two or three dollars.
You might, but they might be more receptive to what you left.
I love this track because it's just a thank you track.
It says, I want to take a moment to say thank you for how well
you treated me today and a very short form version of just some
biblical political verses to be able to help encourage them.
And so you can check this out. This is a helpful one.
The check out line. You can often hand one out
there. I know it's not always possible,
but it is possible. If you get into a conversation,
if you're just standing there and staring at them and they're
just going beep, beep, beep. I would probably not expect at
the end of that interaction to say here, I'd like to give you
this because that's going to be really awkward.
And to be honest with you, they're probably not going to
read it. They're like, what's the deal
here? But if you're having a
conversation with them and you're trying to lead them to a
place where you can give them a track, it is very possible and
very doable to be able to do that at the store.
People that you meet, you might just meet people.
I don't know who did this. There's a couple here.
Hopefully, Lord willing, they'll get a visit tomorrow.
I've never told anybody, hey, just go take tracks and put them
on people's cars. I've never said that there are
places that you could get in trouble conceivably for doing
that. And but at the same time, it's
the word of God. I'm not going to tell anybody
not to give the word of God. You understand what I'm saying?
There's a couple that's coming here right now, one who has
questions about salvation. The other was asking for
assurance of salvation. They got one of these on their
windshield. And, and I, I even told them, I
said, you know, where were you? All of that didn't really match
up. I'm not really sure.
I've asked a couple people about it, but here's what I do know.
I said, I said, Are you sure That's from our church?
And she said, well, hold on a second.
I'm gonna go out to the car And she grabbed it and it was this,
not this very track, but it was this track design that was a
left on the windshield. Here they are at liberty.
They have been the last couple weeks.
Of course, you know, the weather and people being sick and all
that. But that's one of the reasons
when you go visit them tomorrow to be able to try to talk to
them about the Lord, try to be able to have them come back.
That's why it's so important. You never know.
Here's the thing, keep these with you at all times.
One of these I love about the winter.
I love about the winters. I can always have place for the
tracks because I got 18 pockets in my coats.
In fact, the problem sometimes is trying to remember which
pockets in because I've got so many pockets.
But that's great. Diane gave me for Christmas
something. I forgot to bring it with me
tonight, but it's literally a track holder that I'm able to
keep in my pocket because if I just keep tracks in my pocket,
by the time you give them to somebody, it looks like, you
know, somebody chewed it up and ate it and then you hand it to
him. That's not really very
attractive to be able to do. But this track holder I can put
in my pocket. It's kind of leather.
It kind of looks like a wallet in some ways.
But no matter what I do in my pocket, the tracks always come
out perfectly. So you can find something like
that online. I could probably help you find
something like that. Ladies.
The purse obviously is a great thing.
The glove pox in the car is a great thing.
You can find different ways to be able to hold on to them, but
handing out tracks it you'd be surprised what kind of response
comes from handing out tracks, inviting people to church.
That's one of the reasons we have special days.
We have family and friends that we can invite to church.
Your neighbors. These are people that you can
talk to about the Lord proactively pray for your
family. Actively pray for those who you
love to be able to have opportunities to witness to
them. I know that you can't
necessarily witness to them every single time you're around
them because if you do, they're not going to listen to you at
all. But you can love on them with
the love of Christ. You can pray for a door of
utterance to be able to talk to them and understand that the
Spirit will give you the liberty to talk to them probably more
than your flesh wants to. And so just be prepared to be
able to have those conversations.
Talk to your neighbors. Your neighbors should know of
you being a believer. They see you probably going out
to your car on Sunday with your Bible.
They're outside doing the lawn. They're outside getting ready
for a Pats game and what are you doing?
You got your Bible in your arm. There you go again.
You're going to church in our apartment building.
People know where the church people why one could be a big
church fan, but two, I'm going out tonight and what I got, I
got two kids in tow. I got a leather case.
I'm dressed up in a suit. What everybody know?
Oh, here comes the preacher, like hope he doesn't talk to me.
You know, that's kind of what some of them say.
So, but these are people you can invite to church, make at
different times of the year, make a basket of goodies and be
able to just give them to them, those kind of things.
There's very small things that you can do to be able to invite
people to church, but this is what you do when you're so
conscious. You're thinking about
opportunities. You're thinking about
opportunities. This is why we make
opportunities here. So I would give out Donuts
before friends and family Sunday.
Why? Because at least they'll keep
the door open long enough for the Donuts.
And so we'll be able to give them a track and hopefully talk
to them. And that has been effective for
us over the years. Here's some that's important.
Bring up your relationship with Christ in conversation.
This is a big deal because a lot of times we don't have
opportunity to talk about Christ because we don't talk about
Christ. You know what I'm saying?
You know, if somebody says you know, what were you doing
yesterday and it's Monday, don't say well y'all just around the
house because you're embarrassed.
Always a church made a great day.
Church it was, it was phenomenal.
And talk about how good it was. I mean don't lie, but talk about
it. It was good.
I went a few weeks ago to Big Y after church.
How am I dressed? I'm dressed like this about
1:00. Oh, I know what day it was.
It was the day that the heat went out at the church.
Went to Big Y afterwards to pick up some food to be able to come
home. And the lady said, wow, you're
dressed up nice. She said, what were you doing?
And you know, in that second you're thinking, boys, a lot of
things I could say. And I said, well, I was at
church. Oh, that's a great thing to be
at church. And I said it is.
I said, I said, you know what? I said it was cold.
I said, you know, it's 40° in that building.
Everybody's mad at the pastor. And she said, oh, yeah, that's
awful. And I said, I said, you know who
the pastor is? Me.
And she laughed, you know, And I've seen her before.
I didn't in that moment have an opportunity to give her a track.
But at the same time, I have seen her before and we'll see
her again. And just those little things you
say. Will anything come of it?
I know how nothing will come of it.
By not saying anything, if something good happens, say
praise the Lord in front of your, in front of your friends,
Hey, say something like this. I was praying for that.
I was praying for that promotion.
I was praying for that raise. Thank the Lord for that.
These are ways that people you can do without being
sanctimonious. You can do without being weird.
But if Jesus is a part of your life, then why would we not talk
about him during our daily life? He's not part of our life and
then we're surprised we don't have opportunity to talk to
people of Jesus. Well, oftentimes the world's not
going to come to you saying, what do you think about Jesus?
They will, Sometimes they will, especially if they've seen Jesus
in you. But you know, more often you're
the one that needs to bring him up and talk to him and give him
glory. And as you do, some people be
off put by it. Some people won't want to talk.
Some people won't take the bait. We've talked about that before.
Some people as soon as you say Jesus, their eyes glaze over.
They oh boy, you know, it's like, Oh yeah.
It's like, Oh yeah, that's that's good for you.
You know, that kind of thing. But there might be some others
that will listen and so bring him up in your conversation.
Make individual visits, not door to door visits.
That really goes along with I just said visit children shut
insurance. You might have those in your
neighborhood. If you see people that that
there's a family with some kids, they might be struggling a
little bit a shut in someone that doesn't get out very much.
Let's go over and make them a plate of cookies.
Go over unless they're diabetic, you know, go over and you know,
just try to make them a friend. These visits often take time to
see fruit but are needful each week.
And so there's some of these. It's going to be a long time
before you see fruit, if you see fruit at all.
But again, be so conscious about it.
If you can't listen, if you can't come, pray for those who
go out on Saturday. If you can't attend for an hour
or two, would you devote that time to prayer?
Maybe you're at work on Saturday.
I can't work, but would you? If you know we have visitation,
we'd be praying for those who do go out.
Pray for yourself. Pray for those who witnessed
here in the church just during the week, just commit that to
prayer. When you say is that important?
It's vitally important. We pray the Spirit goes out
before us and does the work that we can't do.
What if that person gets a phone call right before we come and
that phone call softens their heart to the gospel?
You don't know where people will be in their in their place of
life. You can assist with writing
materials for soul winning as well.
And I'll talk more about that on Sunday night because there is
some effort and work that goes into that.
But I will say, and this is probably a good place for us to
to end here tonight, you don't know, just because someone
wasn't interested in the Lord before that they will be not
interested in the Lord the rest of their life.
When I was growing up, there's a very famous TV show called
Dawson's Creek. Some of you may have heard that
as a teen soap opera kind of thing.
I'm certainly not saying that it was something that you should
been watching, something I shouldn't have been watching,
but I was, at least for a little while when I was in some years
where I was just kind of doing whatever I wanted to do.
But you probably heard in the news a few days ago, there was a
gentleman just a little bit older than me named James Van
Der Beek. And he was the star of that
show. He was Dawson and wanted nothing
to do with God for years. Just found out just about a year
or two ago about the cancer that he had.
Again, just a little bit older than me, but he said in an
interview, one of the last interviews they gave, that he's
found over the last six months that he has truly gotten the
place where he wants to know God better.
Now, let's be honest, we don't know what that means.
We don't know what that means, But it isn't interesting that
somebody could not want to know God.
But then in that moment when they were faced with the
reckoning of their lives, what's the first thing they do?
They think of God. The events of life change
people, and we can't just assume because someone told you they
weren't interested a year ago or two years ago that they will not
be interested the rest of your life.
Don't give up. Don't give up.
I can tell you story after story of people.
I thought that person will never get saved.
Humanly speaking, they'd never get saved.
But God worked in them in such a way.
If God loves them that much, don't you think God's going to
try to get their attention any way he can?
He'll use you to be able to help.
Is this uncomfortable? Boy, It's uncomfortable.
Is it easy? It's not easy.
Is it something that could end up devoting a lot you devote a
lot of your life to? Absolutely.
But as I mentioned just a few days ago, aren't you glad
somebody did that for you? And honestly, there's probably
several people who did that for you along the way.
And for us, we need to be that person and those people.
And you don't know how. 1 little action, 1 little act prayerfully
done could change a life forever.
Even reaching somebody that is saved already or inviting
someone to church, I never could have imagined, and I'll use this
example and I'm done. I never could imagine right
before, well, right when the pandemic hit and we decided we
were going to do a outdoor service, it was one of those
things that I, you know, for Easter, I said, you know, I'm
not, I'm not asking anybody's opinion about it.
This is just what we're going to do.
I remember I didn't ask the trustees what they thought.
I'd just informed them this is what we were doing.
And it's not saying I should have to consult with them and
those kind of things. It was a pretty big decision to
be able to do. I just, I felt in the spirit,
this is what we need to do. We need to be together, even if
we're in the cars, all that. I remember putting out press
releases. Pastors don't normally put out
press releases, but I didn't have a way to to letting the
community know what's going on. And I put every TV station,
every newspaper in the area, a press release from the church.
I remember W the CBS affiliate, WCRBI think whatever it is, I
don't know, the CBS affiliate interviewed me.
The CBS affiliate came down for the service and all that.
I could never have imagined that from that there was a guy who
came in, came out. We didn't know it was because we
couldn't talk to each other. There's Chuck.
That was Chuck six years ago. And from that, now Chuck was
already saved. But Chuck had a son who wasn't
saved. And now guess what?
He felt burdened about Chucky getting saved.
Charles Chucky got saved, and now Chucky is in Bible college
and he's winning other people to Christ, as we talked about a few
weeks ago. You don't know from one small
action. So, Pastor, should I be putting
out press release that you're saying in my sphere, I did
everything I could at that moment because I didn't feel
like there's much I could. What if I felt that desperate
every day about the lost? It would change the way I looked
at life. It would change the way I look
at my priorities. The desperation of that moment
made me get very creative. But shouldn't we just be that
emphatic about the gospel anyway?
Because the stakes dictate the pace.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.