Sermon

Winning Souls - Andrew Tucker

Church of Christ - Bakersfield, Ca

Open publisher episode ↗

Publisher transcript

Transcript

View source ↗
  1. It's great to see everyone back this afternoon.

  2. I mentioned when I opened up in the morning that I had a sports

  3. analogy and I'll set a sports analogy for this afternoon that

  4. wasn't actually planned, but I don't have just talked about

  5. sports, believe it or not even though I do like sports and

  6. religion. What your favorite things to

  7. talk about? But going back to my childhood,

  8. I played on a lot of different teams.

  9. And when I was in high school, my junior year in high school

  10. during football season, we had a really good team and they're

  11. just one of those things are a small school public school, so

  12. you don't have a good team just about every year.

  13. Just usually kind of comes together.

  14. It was one of those years where had the right group of kids and

  15. the right plan and we had a great season and we were playing

  16. at that time in San Diego, we're playing a rank.

  17. Steam and for a small school, you don't get a chance to play A

  18. ranked team very often. So we are all excited for the

  19. game. And long story short, the game

  20. started, we were playing great, they didn't know what hit him,

  21. it was really cold that day. We kind of played in the

  22. mountains and they were from the desert.

  23. So they really have a chance, weather-wise and the end of the

  24. game, it was thirty four to nothing.

  25. We won. So we're feeling pretty good

  26. about ourselves and we were going into last couple weeks of

  27. the Season. We are undefeated and we are

  28. playing at that time, the third place team, and our league and

  29. of course as the team, that's the top dog.

  30. You start kind of smelling yourself with what they say.

  31. And we say well, you know, we're probably going to win this game

  32. and we're going to go to on 25 an undefeated season.

  33. Well, there's one of those days where it was really hot

  34. unusually. Hot.

  35. We weren't really used to that. We didn't, we weren't ready to

  36. play. We weren't excited.

  37. We weren't pumped up, and it was a close game all the way down to

  38. the end, and they ended up scoring in the fourth quarter.

  39. And they won the game by a touchdown.

  40. And of course, we were heartbroken as teenagers, we

  41. lost the big game and back in the locker room, people were

  42. crying. They were hitting the walls.

  43. And why why do we lose? And I was never really a type of

  44. person, but I was pretty small L my team.

  45. So I didn't say anything. I didn't want to lie, you guys

  46. crying. I just kept my mouth shut.

  47. Why are all these big giant? Guys are crying in the corner

  48. and I was like, it's just a game guys.

  49. But of course, that's teenage years and testosterone and all

  50. that. Well, they were crying and they

  51. are upset because they expected to win, like we had this great

  52. Season. We're going to, we could go

  53. undefeated and we lost and now they're really upset and

  54. expected to win. Well, so I played on some really

  55. bad teams in my life, especially when I played soccer soccer was

  56. new to our area when I started. And a lot of it, the league

  57. around us. A lot of the kids have been

  58. playing since they were little kids.

  59. Five years old. We all started when we were like

  60. 10 or 11. So none of us knew how to play

  61. and if you're not Not that familiar with soccer.

  62. Generally, a good game in the prose is 221, you know, one to

  63. nothing 00. Sometimes three, two, one, we

  64. lost every single game 12-nothing 14-nothing.

  65. If we got the ball past halfway Midfield we are like oh that was

  66. a good possession that's great. Or if we even got a chance to

  67. score if we even took a shot I was like okay that was a big

  68. deal. And I think we may have a score

  69. like Five goals the whole season but you know what's interesting

  70. about those teams after the game nobody was crying.

  71. Nobody was upset. We were laughing having a good

  72. time. We'd go out and get ice cream.

  73. Or we go to Carl's jr. Or something.

  74. Why was that, why? It was that we expected to lose.

  75. We knew we were going to lose. So why be upset about it?

  76. Why would be a bit upset? When we knew what was already

  77. going to happen here? My other team, we lost a close

  78. game and everybody's crying because expected to win.

  79. They were upset. Now, here I have these kind of

  80. to two positions that people take and I won't go to contend

  81. to morning at sometimes. In the church we can be like my

  82. soccer team. Is that we expect to lose to the

  83. world. We see the world around us is

  84. wicked and evil. And we see maybe I'm not

  85. familiar with this area as well. But at least in El, Cajon where

  86. I live. We're surrounded by these mega

  87. churches where they have no immunity heard of Daniel,

  88. Jeremiah the televangelists. He's three miles from our

  89. building. We have The Rock Church.

  90. I don't know if you've heard of that lie, where I can't remember

  91. his name. Now, the top of my head, but

  92. he's on TV as well. And then you have Foothills or

  93. surf right across the street. And they have a All block of

  94. buildings, All Surrounded surrounding us.

  95. And I feel sometimes at the church is that we expect people

  96. not to be interested. We expect people not to come to

  97. worship. We expect people to reject our

  98. message. And I would like to say that we

  99. should not think that way or feel that way. if you truly

  100. believe that God is on your side, that means you're on The

  101. Winning Side. God does not want us to have a

  102. losing mentality that we are powerless that we don't have

  103. ability to convert people, that we don't have.

  104. The ability to bring the gospel to people this afternoon.

  105. I want us to think that we can win souls for Christ, even this

  106. day and age this time, in this state, in this city, people can

  107. turn to Christ. If we follow God's word and we

  108. trust in it in Proverbs 11:30 the fruit of the righteous is a

    Proverbs 11:30

  109. tree of life and he who wins what, who is wise, when's Souls?

  110. Brothers sisters. We are in a battle.

  111. Tween Satan. And us.

  112. Battle over Souls. In verse 4 of First, John

    John 3 chapter mention

  113. chapter 3, John tells us everyone who makes a practice of

  114. sinning also practices. Lawlessness sin is lawlessness.

  115. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in

  116. him. There is no sin, no one who

  117. abides in him, keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has

  118. ever seen him or known him little children.

  119. Let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness

  120. is righteous as he is righteous. Whoever Makes a practice of

  121. sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the

  122. beginning. The reason of the Son of God

  123. appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

  124. Notice here, the very end. The reason some of that appeared

  125. was to destroy the works of the devil.

  126. Now, I admit I don't often think about that.

  127. I often think about Jesus coming as as giving us guidance as

  128. giving us a way of life and ultimately dying for our sins on

  129. the cross, which is absolutely right.

  130. But do we often think about Jesus also came to destroy the

  131. Devil to overcome him to put him in his place.

  132. That's exactly what he did. Jesus overcame him the devil

  133. tempted. Him, he came to him.

  134. He threw everything he had at him and he devil thought he won.

  135. When he was Jesus was crucified. but Jesus was resurrected and

  136. the devil was defeated Do you realize that you are on The

  137. Winning Side today? Why should we feel defeated?

  138. Well we shouldn't now I realize it's hard to convert people.

  139. I realized that it's not easy when people say no and we can

  140. get down and sometimes congregations get smaller but

  141. that's that's not the case everywhere.

  142. That's not the case at all times.

  143. Partly, it's because of us, we lose hope we stopped working.

  144. We stopped asking our neighbors, we stopped getting being

  145. involved in the evangelism of the church.

  146. Well, there is a battle going on of our souls and we have to

  147. consider that if we're not reaching out to those in sin or

  148. not, reaching out to the Lost. They can potentially lose their

  149. soul, there's going to be a great separation.

  150. You read about it. Jesus explains in Matthew 25,

  151. when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with

  152. him, then he will sit on his glorious Throne before him will

  153. be gathered all the nations and he will separate people from one

  154. another. As a Shepherd separates the

  155. sheep from the goats and he will place the sheep on his right,

  156. but the goats on his left. Jesus is coming to return, he is

  157. coming to fulfill his mission and that is going to bring all

  158. of us into judgment. And what's going to be an

  159. account as everyone's Soul, how they lived, how they what are

  160. they became a Christian or whether they stayed away of the

  161. world? Well, the Sheep on the right, I

  162. realize I probably should put this backwards.

  163. I don't make a lot more sense. The Sheep on the right then the

  164. king will say to those on his. Right?

  165. Come who you are blessed of my father, inherit the Kingdom,

  166. prepared for you, from the foundation of the world.

  167. And on the goats that left then he will say to those on his left

  168. depart from me, you cursed into the Eternal fire prepared for

  169. the devil and his angels. There are people that we know

  170. people that we talk to people that we love that are going to

  171. be on the left with the goats. God has given us.

  172. The gospel of salvation. Now, if you truly care about

  173. your neighbor or your family member, your Your coworker.

  174. Why don't we share the message of Saving Grace of Jesus Christ?

  175. We have a role to play in James chapter 5.

    James 5 chapter mention

  176. We read my brother's If anyone among you wanders from the truth

  177. and someone brings him back. Let him know that.

  178. Whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering.

  179. Will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of

  180. sins. God wants us to have compassion

  181. on those who have wandered away from the truth.

  182. I realized today that we can get so caught up in our own little

  183. world. I know I do this is that we're

  184. focused on we wake up or we're getting ready for work.

  185. We're getting the kids ready for school.

  186. We were thinking that what we have to do that day.

  187. Maybe already thinking about what we have to do in the

  188. afternoon. What we have to do for dinner,

  189. getting that ready. Then we either we go to work.

  190. We go to school. We have to be our

  191. responsibilities in the daytime. We get home after, you know, a

  192. long day. Maybe there's some time to

  193. unwind and then you have to go right back into chores and

  194. taking care of kids, or maybe visiting family, or maybe have

  195. someone sick in the hospital. There's a lot of things to do in

  196. a day. But do we consider that there

  197. are people who are lost that need?

  198. Help to find the way. Well, the reality is it doesn't

  199. take much to encourage someone. I can send a two-sentence text

  200. in about 10 seconds especially now that I can just talk right

  201. into my phone and say, hey how are you doing?

  202. I haven't seen you in a while. And they say, oh well thanks I

  203. haven't seen you in a while either.

  204. You know, we still have we could still write cards the

  205. old-fashioned way. We can send emails, we can call,

  206. we can send a text to check in on people that have wandered

  207. away. We need to Value their soul.

  208. I know, we can get caught up in what we're doing, but we all

  209. have a role to play in this now. I like to go hiking and I know

  210. you have mountains close by here and I'm assuming some of you are

  211. hikers. Generally when I go hiking, we

  212. stay on the trail. I'm not wealthy people that just

  213. goes and runs wild out there and finds a spot.

  214. We have a trail that we do and I've really never been lost

  215. hiking, but I know there are people who are a lot more

  216. adventurous than I am that that get stuck somewhere, that that

  217. lose the trail even following a trail sometimes it you don't

  218. know where it goes. I even kind of embarrassing.

  219. I don't know if you're familiar with the PCT, the Pacific Crest

  220. Trail. Where it starts from the Mexican

  221. border goes all the way up to the Canadian border and it

  222. actually starts in my hometown in Campo, right on the Mexican

  223. border, the Mexican American Border.

  224. So we decided you were going to start hiking portions of it and

  225. me my brother, and our friend, Josh who came part of the way.

  226. And the very first section starts on her hometown and it

  227. goes up to the lake where my parents live, and we're on the

  228. trail and we're walking along about halfway through.

  229. We get to a road. And the road kind of breaks up

  230. the trail. So we start walking down the

  231. road to find the trail and we can't find the trail.

  232. And it's really embarrassing because we're about five miles

  233. from my house. It's like wow, we're lost and I

  234. think it took me about 45 minutes to find the trail, but

  235. eventually we found it. But and that was a wide-open

  236. area to there was no trees above us or we can we couldn't see the

  237. Sun, but as you can, as you can see it, go down to force out in

  238. the wilderness. People can get lost and they

  239. don't know the way out. As well as Christians.

  240. There are people who are wandering right around us and

  241. they're like, I don't know, the way to Jesus, I don't know.

  242. The way that God and we don't, we don't say anything to them.

  243. We have a map that shows them the way.

  244. But we're not handing it out to them.

  245. We're not speaking it to them, we're not checking in with them.

  246. To say, hey, do you know the way to Jesus Christ?

  247. You know, the way to Salvation this goes for our friends goes,

  248. for our neighbors, it goes for our family.

  249. Going starting off with our friends.

  250. When I was a teenager, I was baptized when I was 16.

  251. I grew up going to church in the Church of Christ.

  252. My mom and my mom was baptized, my grandparents were Christians.

  253. So I had a culture growing up in the church but I wasn't

  254. necessarily active in the church.

  255. I was there on Sunday on Sunday morning.

  256. I was there Wednesday is no Sunday, afternoons.

  257. Nope. Maybe after potluck or

  258. something, I would stick around. And when I would be with my

  259. friends, now I'm not going to say I was a wild person, I

  260. really wasn't but I didn't miss Lee, talk about God and my

  261. friends we talked about everything else but that and as

  262. my early 20s, I started to get more involved in the church.

  263. And when Matt Trent came down into San Diego and started

  264. working down there, I started doing Bible studies with him.

  265. I maybe my whole life I may be done for Bible studies, my whole

  266. life of that point and I was Doing three a week.

  267. So I was getting a lot more involved.

  268. I was cited and I invited my friends to the Bible study.

  269. I think for my friends came to the Bible study and that was

  270. really exciting and one of my friends actually to my friends

  271. ended up getting baptized Mostly because of math.

  272. Course I was just there. He did all the talking But I had

  273. a very almost heartbreaking conversation with my friends

  274. where it just really kind of punches you in the gut.

  275. I was talking to my friend and he had been baptized for a while

  276. and thing is we had been friends since seventh grade and so I

  277. have we've known each other for a long time and he just we're

  278. talking in one day he said Andrew How come you never

  279. invited me to church before? He's like, we're friends for

  280. trying do the math here, at least eight, nine years and it

  281. did it took you nine years to invite me to church, how come

  282. you never invited me to church. And I was one of those things

  283. where it just hits you. And the reason was because his

  284. family didn't go to church, but he was always interested in

  285. going to church, but no one really invited him.

  286. He'd go sometimes here and there but when I invited he was

  287. excited, someone invited me and I'm going to Go.

  288. But all those years, I didn't invite him one time, I'll try to

  289. think back on my life. How many people had contact

  290. with? I never invited them to church

  291. once. How many co-workers I had, how

  292. many schoolmates I didn't invite them to church once or to a

  293. Bible study or even say the word Jesus in front of me, it's very

  294. shameful to think about, but now that I'm cognizant of that, we

  295. all need to be cognizant that people around us are lost our

  296. neighbors. Do your neighbors know that you

  297. go to church, do your neighbors know that you're a Christian.

  298. What about even some of our own family?

  299. Now, I know that's a very uncomfortable Terrible

  300. conversation. I would rather talk to a

  301. complete stranger about Jesus. Then someone I'm very close to

  302. that. I know that has different

  303. opinions to me because it can be an awkward conversation.

  304. But is it worth having an awkward conversation to win?

  305. Someone's soul. I think it is.

  306. If you put it, like, put it in perspective, people are lost,

  307. but we know the way about God gives us people.

  308. He gives us people in our lives. He gives us people in the church

  309. to lead us away from this Darkness into light and verse 11

  310. of Ephesians 4. Paul says, any games the

  311. apostles the prophets, evangelists the shepherd's, the

  312. teachers took whip this It's for the work of Ministry for

  313. building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity

  314. of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God to a mature.

  315. Manhood to the measure of the statute of fullness of Christ.

  316. So that we no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves and

  317. carried about by every wind of Doctrine by human cunning by

  318. craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather speaking the truth in

  319. love we are to grow up to every way unto him, who is the head

  320. unto Christ? Going back to your mindset.

  321. That's what we'll be talking about.

  322. Today is our mindset of. Are we here to win?

  323. Souls for Christ? Or are we just taking up space?

  324. In the church, are we actively serving our role in the church.

  325. Now, not everyone is going to be the preacher and God makes that

  326. very clear. If you read 1st Corinthians, do

  327. you read. Romans 12 has a different role

  328. for us, and we're going to get to one of those passages.

  329. But are we fulfilling a role in the church?

  330. Are we doing our part to spread the gospel?

  331. Now, I mentioned sometimes we'd only have to be the ones doing

  332. the talking. But we should be the ones, doing

  333. the inviting, I know you have great teachers here that are

  334. capable of sharing the gospel with people.

  335. We can invite them to church, invite them to a Bible study or

  336. maybe even start the conversation ourselves and say,

  337. hey would you be interested in talking to one of our preachers

  338. more about Jesus? The gospel, you might be

  339. surprised by their answer, you might be surprised.

  340. We have an influence, God expects us to influence those

  341. for the good. Jesus said, you are the light of

  342. the world say that set on a hill cannot be hidden nor people

  343. light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand and it

  344. gives light to all in the house in the same way.

  345. Let your light shine before others.

  346. So they will may see your good works and give glory to your

  347. father who is in heaven. I know this people to this many

  348. times to bring someone to Christ.

  349. We don't have to preach a sermon to them.

  350. Live the life of the Christian be an example unto them and they

  351. will see your good works. And glorify your father in

  352. Heaven when we do a kind deed for someone and they say thank

  353. you. We say it's all for the glory of

  354. God. Oh really.

  355. Are you a Christian? Yes, I am.

  356. We have an influence in this world possible, Paul understood

  357. this, that he was there to serve other people.

  358. And First Corinthians 9 in verse 19 says for though, I am free

  359. from all. I have made myself a servant to

  360. all that. I might win more of them to the

  361. Jews. I became as a Jew in order to

  362. win the Jews to those under the law.

  363. I became one under the law though, not being myself under

  364. the law. They had my twin those under the

  365. law to those outside the law. Law.

  366. I became as one outside the law not being outside the law of

  367. God, but under the law of Christ that I might win those outside

  368. the law to the week, I became weak that I might win the week.

  369. I have become all things to all people that I have been all

  370. means I might save some Apostle. Paul the right attitude says

  371. there are people who have Jewish backgrounds or people who have

  372. maybe a Greek background of philosophical background.

  373. I can relate to them, I can share them the way I can point

  374. them in the line that they can get to Christ.

  375. Everyone here has a unique background.

  376. That is different than the person sitting next, to you,

  377. even your spouse even your own family.

  378. I have a background that might relate to someone else.

  379. I have a sports background. I am a middle child.

  380. Whatever it is. Maybe I'll meet someone else

  381. that's five foot nine. Am 5 foot nine to.

  382. We both. Can we both can follow Jesus.

  383. Whether it's our ethnicity, what other, whether it's where we're

  384. from, we all have an ability to relate to other people and

  385. that's what Paul. So, Paul did he recognize that?

  386. Well, I have a lot of ways I can relate to people.

  387. I said, I've been a weak person. I'm the chief of Sinners.

  388. All you think you're a bad person?

  389. Wait till you hear my story? How bad I was?

  390. But God changed me. And God can change anyone who

  391. comes to. Then when order for us to

  392. accomplish this and worse for us to have this mindset that we're

  393. going to be out there winning souls and in business and

  394. marketing and I've been learning a little bit about marketing

  395. myself. And a lot of times we focus on

  396. the the, the losing things say, well, I talked to my neighbor

  397. and they rejected And my message.

  398. So, and that really discouraged me.

  399. So I didn't want to talk to my other neighbor.

  400. Well, what if Jesus had that same attitude?

  401. What if Paul had that same attitude, they wouldn't I got

  402. too far and they're preaching, would they?

  403. No Jesus said, you know, shake off your sandals and move on to

  404. the next town so I can listen to you.

  405. I know it's hard to do that, but we have to understand that there

  406. are people out there waiting for us to share the message with

  407. them. And if someone is not

  408. interested, we move on to the next person.

  409. But people are interested in order for us to have this, we

  410. have to have the mentality. We have to empathize with

  411. people. Now I try to put myself in that

  412. situation. And kind of going back to my

  413. analogy of my friends. How would you feel if one of

  414. your best friends? New the way to Salvation and

  415. they were just watching you live your life and you had no idea.

  416. You didn't know much about the Bible, of course, the growing up

  417. growing up in America, you know, a little bit about the Bible and

  418. about Jesus, maybe just in pop culture and your friends over

  419. here going to church every Sunday.

  420. And he gets baptized, he's trying to be the best Christian.

  421. You can't, he never bothers to talk to you about Jesus.

  422. How would you feel that knowing that he knew these things and

  423. didn't share it with you? Would you be upset when he found

  424. out? I think I would be.

  425. Well, sometimes that's us. We need to realize that there

  426. are people who just need to know about God, that just need that

  427. little invitation to get their foot in the door, to hear about

  428. Jesus. We also need earnestness

  429. Tomorrow's not guaranteed. Now I have a lot of plans to do

  430. things in the future and I'm if you're a planner I'm sure you

  431. have a lot of plans. The I want to, I want to go to

  432. this place. I want to travel here.

  433. I want to talk to this person. You know, I want to go preach

  434. over here. If you're a preacher you make me

  435. have your list of places you want to go to maybe even

  436. countries that you want to evangelize to.

  437. And that's great. That's great to have these plans

  438. in these admissions. The reality is the world may end

  439. tomorrow. Jesus May return our life might

  440. be over too. Today, we don't know.

  441. So, if there's someone that, you know, that's lost, maybe someone

  442. in the church, that's wandered away today after church, before

  443. you forget, Send them a text. Hey, how are you doing?

  444. Send them an email. Call them.

  445. Maybe tomorrow, if you're you have the ability.

  446. You go try to go visit. So makeup, make a plan.

  447. Hey, what are you doing tomorrow night?

  448. Do you want to come over for dinner?

  449. You want to meet for lunch? We cannot wait.

  450. We cannot let these opportunities wait.

  451. There's one story that the story I do not say I do not enjoy

  452. sharing but it is important for us to understand.

  453. And this there was a family that I had been talking to and of

  454. course I approached them about doing a Bible study, that's

  455. primarily what I do during the week is, do Bible says with

  456. people. So I said, well, one of the

  457. member one of the People in the marriage can't think of the

  458. name, one of the spouses one was a member one was not okay.

  459. I said it and so I put it out there is that may be decided

  460. with the whole family. But really, I was kind of

  461. thinking about the one person that wasn't a member that was

  462. kind of my angle, but I put it out there.

  463. Hey, let's do a family study and of course, the kids, they were

  464. younger, but still, they were getting closer to the age where

  465. they become remembers. So I put that out there and they

  466. said, you know, that'd be great nose.

  467. Yes. All right.

  468. Great. And as a, the course, how these

  469. things go, how it is here, but in San Diego.

  470. The culture is, everyone will say, yes, but it's more like a

  471. maybe. Oh, yeah, sounds great.

  472. When you want to get together, I'll get back to you.

  473. All right. I love to get together with you,

  474. alright? When you want to get to the, let

  475. me check my schedule and you never hear back from.

  476. Of course, it's just a polite, way of saying yes.

  477. But another there's tell me. No but that's different.

  478. That's different story. Well anyways it was one of those

  479. situations where I said, okay, let's do Bible.

  480. Teddy and they get back to you. All right, so week went by you

  481. know, they didn't get back to me.

  482. So next time I saw him, I brought it up again.

  483. Hey, you still interested in doing a Bible study and I think

  484. it happened three times and the third time, is it, you know

  485. what, it's really not going to work out with our schedule right

  486. now but you can study with our kids because they're free at

  487. this time. Of course I was disappointed,

  488. but I said well, at least I'm going to study with their kids

  489. so I went to Bible say with their kids and of course that

  490. was that was a good thing to do, even though I wanted really

  491. wanted to study. With the husband because he

  492. wasn't a Christian and I believe it was about three, four months

  493. later, he had a heart attack and died. 49 years old.

  494. Never became a Christian greed. To the Bible study was

  495. interested. not saying that if he would study with me, it would

  496. have happened, but Never got a chance and I think I go back and

  497. Replay that was like, should have been more persistent?

  498. You should have tried harder. Of course, I should have But the

  499. same time on his side, he didn't take that opportunity.

  500. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. If someone you know, someone

  501. that you care about is not a Christian, we need to win their

  502. souls for Christ and let them they can be on the side with

  503. Christ. Now I bring us about

  504. Effectiveness and I don't want to stand up here and pretend

  505. like I know all the answers and know how to do things.

  506. Everyone has a method that works for them.

  507. There's a brother that works with me.

  508. In El, Cajon Ali, Assad Regus. You probably heard of him.

  509. He's won or against his brother. He, I don't want to say it, but

  510. he's probably one of the best evangelist we have in the

  511. church. I mean, the man's started more

  512. churches than a lot of preachers of baptized, he just an

  513. excellent, excellent. Evangelist and he's very busy.

  514. but if I tried to, Real evangelize like he did, it

  515. wouldn't feel sincere because I'm not him.

  516. He has his way of doing things, and I have my personality have

  517. totally different personalities. And even the culture is what she

  518. worked. There's different cultures and

  519. different aspects. I'm just saying that if we try a

  520. method and it doesn't work, the answer is not to give up, but to

  521. try another method, the try another angle, if you invite

  522. someone to church and say, you're not really interested in

  523. coming. To church.

  524. Okay? Are you interested in coming to

  525. a Bible study? Are you interested in coming to

  526. a fellowship night? Are you interested?

  527. There's always something else that we can try to get their

  528. foot in the door or don't even ask them.

  529. Just have a conversation with them.

  530. What do you think about Jesus? Do you believe in Jesus?

  531. Are you Christian? Sometimes we just get the ball

  532. rolling. Don't give up after the first

  533. time a failure. That's what winners keep going.

  534. God wants us to keep going Apostle.

  535. Paul. He's because he changed his

  536. method as approach to find the people to bring them to Christ

  537. the win. Then the last thing is we need

  538. everyone involved. There's a lot of great people in

  539. the church who do a lot of great work.

  540. If the church is going to grow and if it's going to grow

  541. exponentially, the reality is everyone needs to be involved.

  542. Everyone needs to be doing their part in Romans.

    Romans 12:4–8

  543. Chapter 12 Verses 4 through 8 for as in one body.

  544. We have many members, the members do not all have the same

  545. function so we though many are one body in Christ and

  546. individually members of one another.

  547. Having gifts that differ, according to the grace, given to

  548. us, let us use it. If prophecy in proportion to our

  549. faith. If service in our serving, the

  550. one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his

  551. exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the

  552. one who leads with Zeal, the one who does acts of Mercy, With

  553. cheerfulness. Of all the things listed here,

  554. is there anyone in this building?

  555. That could not perform one of these tasks.

  556. Like I said, I don't know everyone here, but I think the

  557. answer is no, everyone here. Can can do one of these things

  558. to serve to encourage to teach to contribute to lead.

  559. To have mercy. Now, I really like this last one

  560. because I funding, I struggle with if someone is really sad,

  561. if someone is really hurting their grieving, they're in pain,

  562. I do my best. But I'm not one to get really

  563. emotional and to start crying and to that's just not me my

  564. wife on the other hand, if she sees someone crying, she'll

  565. start crying. If someone isn't she goes right

  566. over to them and gives them a hug?

  567. You know, we have different roles.

  568. We need people like that who can empathize, who can Comfort, who

  569. can be merciful There are people who are are generous, and

  570. they're in their money and generous in their time, they're

  571. people who are, who are retired, but the still active that can

  572. visit people in the daytime and visit people in the hospital

  573. that those who are working, may not have the time to do that, at

  574. that time. We all have a role to play.

  575. Now, if we're all doing these things, that's where it gets

  576. exciting because we'll see the results.

  577. But going back to the attitude. If we have the attitude that we

  578. are defeated, do you think all these things are going to

  579. happen? Do you think the church is going

  580. to grow? Do you think people are going to

  581. walk in this building and say, you know what these people have

  582. the Light of Christ If we're sitting around talking about,

  583. well it's just so hard and I just don't think we're going to

  584. make it. I don't think you have the

  585. attitude, but I've been places where that is the attitude.

  586. You know you already defeated at that point, we're here to win

  587. souls for Christ, God is on our side.

  588. I mentioned already this morning, not the way to

  589. Salvation is through Jesus. Jesus is the way, the truth and

  590. the life. No one comes to the father,

  591. except through him. We have to believe that, and we

  592. have to accept that people are going to be lost unless

  593. Christian stand up and say no more.

  594. No more not in my community. Not in my household.

  595. No, we're going to win souls for Christ.

  596. We are going to overcome because we have Christ on our site.

  597. Jesus already defeated Satan. God is already declared victory.

  598. Are we going to join the battle? Are we going to get involved?

  599. Or we can accept our role in the church now maybe we've lived a

  600. while and we've been coasting through life.

  601. It's not too late to get back engaged to get back involved.

  602. If you're a member of a church, you're not too old to serve

  603. Christ. You're not too young.

  604. We all have something to contribute.

  605. We thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the

  606. Church of Christ at 22:15 plans. Road in Bakersfield, if you

  607. would like any additional information or you would like to

  608. receive a free Bible correspondence, course by mail.

  609. Please email us at info at True Church of Christ

  610. Bakersfield.com. Our service times are on Sundays

  611. at 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.

  612. Please make plans to join us. We would love for you to be our

  613. honored guest.