Sermon

2-1-23 Service: Soulwinning Training (Part 1)

Sermon Podcast—LBC Easton

Open publisher episode ↗

Publisher transcript

Transcript

View source ↗
  1. Welcome to the Liberty Baptist sermon archives.

  2. The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty, Baptist

  3. Church in Eastern Massachusetts. You can find out more about us

  4. or contact us at my Liberty, Baptist dot org or just look us

  5. up on Facebook. And now, we hope that this

  6. message from God's word will be a blessing to you.

  7. There's a lot of talk about Soul winning around our church.

  8. There's a lot of maybe use of that term of that word, Soul,

  9. winning winning, Souls Outreach at.

  10. Maybe you hear these things, but you don't necessarily know what

  11. it means, or you know what it means, but you don't know what

  12. it means to you or you think, you know what it means, but

  13. maybe there is much more to outreach and soul-winning than

  14. maybe what you're familiar with. That's why here in the month of

  15. February, we are going forward in Soul winning meaning this

  16. just as in January, it was my desire.

  17. That by the time we were done with the month, that you would

  18. be, further ahead in your daily walk, then you were at the

  19. beginning of the month. I hope that, by the time we're

  20. done with February that you'll have a greater burden to win

  21. people to Christ, a greater burden to see people save but

  22. also to translate that burden into some tangible ways to go

  23. and share your faith with Their people and know that you have

  24. the ability to if someone asked you, as it was said in scripture

  25. what must I do to be saved that, you would be able to answer the

  26. question, not just from your opinion.

  27. But actually what the word of God says.

  28. And I find this to be true with a lot of Believers.

  29. And I found this to be true at Liberty over the years.

  30. And with other believers that I've interacted with that.

  31. There are many that have a desire to tell other people

  32. about Christ, but the desire doesn't always translate into

  33. results. And the reason why is because

  34. Sometimes people don't know where to go as far as in the

  35. scriptures. They don't know where to go, to

  36. be able to present the gospel. To somebody listen, You'll find

  37. lost people anywhere. I mean walk outside the building

  38. and you'll find lost people everywhere.

  39. But where you have the opportunity to actually present

  40. the gospel to someone and talk to them about the Lord that can

  41. be something that's difficult. And so for us as a church,

  42. there's several reasons why we want to win souls to Christ.

  43. The first is this the Great Commission?

  44. Us to win other people to Christ.

  45. You can go to Matthew Mark, Luke John and the beginning of X, all

  46. of them have a different form of what we would call.

  47. The Great Commission. That Great Commission was not

  48. given to individual Believers. That commission, I believe was

  49. given directly to the institution of the Church of

  50. which we are a part of today and that we are required.

  51. We are compelled to have our mission statement, be this to go

  52. and reach the lost with the gospel.

  53. I love Jesus Christ. Let me put it to you this way,

  54. if we don't, who will if those who know Jesus Christ as their

  55. savior won't win people to Christ.

  56. And who is Will the Lost reach? The Lost will the unsaved.

  57. Reach the unsaved, know it's incumbent on us as Believers

  58. particularly as far as the institution of the church.

  59. Meaning this that are our church is not here to have.

  60. Been-- suppers and our churches not here to have fundraisers and

  61. our churches, not here to his have activities and events

  62. although we can do those things and there's Inherently wrong

  63. with them. But if our church is just made

  64. up of those things that we've missed the mark.

  65. Even when we do those things, we do those things with the purpose

  66. of this, we want to reach people, the gospel.

  67. Now, we want to get them involved in church, so they can

  68. be discipled and they can grow and then they can reach their

  69. friends and their family with the gospel.

  70. And so, when we talk about this need for outreach and soul

  71. winning, its well, one is because we've been commanded to,

  72. It's the Great Commission. Can I give you a very practical

  73. reason? How many of Of you don't raise

  74. your hand, but raise your hand, raise your heart.

  75. If you will, how many of you want?

  76. See, Liberty Baptist Church to grow.

  77. I think everybody would agree with that.

  78. We reach people with the gospel and for every time that I've

  79. said, boy, I wish we had a few more people to church the Holy

  80. Spirit just as quickly says. Why don't you go find somebody

  81. because they're out there? Now we know that you plant the

  82. seed and the Harvest doesn't come the next day.

  83. That's typically not the way that it works.

  84. But we go and plant seed and we pray that like more willing this

  85. Sunday we have a lady who Who received a material at her door,

  86. 23 years ago. We're not exactly sure.

  87. She's not exactly sure. But she says, I've been holding

  88. onto this. I know I need to go to church, I

  89. have materials from you. I want to go to church, that's

  90. happening this Sunday, that's a blessing.

  91. And by the way, pray for her that she'll be coming this

  92. Sunday and I forgot her name. Her name is Julie hold off on

  93. that but no pray for the wrong name but the Lord will know

  94. Jessica. That's right.

  95. I was close. That's why the type it on my

  96. phone or I'll forget Jessica will or willing be here on

  97. Sunday because that but how does the church grow?

  98. Well we invite people and we don't invite them just so a

  99. church grows but we want to see them get saved but then become

  100. part of this institution so that we can perpetuate ourselves and

  101. we can grow and we can Prosper. And it's not just about well,

  102. what was, I mean? What if we had more people, who

  103. know what, if we had more people do this then oh, you're moving

  104. forward. No, don't worry about that.

  105. Just go and tell someone about the gospel and leave it to the

  106. Lord. I have stories that I can tell

  107. you, even even today, which I met at the end of the, the

  108. lesson, the message. Whenever we call it tonight, I

  109. talk to you a little bit about how God is even using some of

  110. the process of planting and watering in the increase, even

  111. today at Liberty Baptist Church. It's a really exciting thing.

  112. So, if we want the church to grow, guess what?

  113. You got to be a part of telling other people about Jesus Christ.

  114. That's just a practical part, but when we get down to the

  115. nitty-gritty, it's not just about being commanded to.

  116. It's not just about a church growth program.

  117. It's really something much deeper than that.

  118. You got saved because you realized you were a sinner that

  119. was going to split hell wide open.

  120. If you died without Jesus Christ, if you died without the

  121. gospel message, Human compassion and the Holy Spirit who lives

  122. inside of us should compel us to go when people to Christ because

  123. listen, I want to win someone to Christ whether they'll ever

  124. attend our church or not. It's not that I only try to win

  125. people to Christ or I'm in Easton.

  126. Well if I'm in another town, they'll never come to our

  127. church. So forget it.

  128. Well know if they have a spiritual need, I want to be

  129. able to win them to Christ and try to help them be involved in

  130. a local church without help them find a church.

  131. If it's not ours because it's not just about a church growth

  132. program, or it's not just about being compelled by God to

  133. perform this Great Commission. It's there are lives that are on

  134. the line, how could you not do something?

  135. And it's This culture that we live in today, where something

  136. bad happens to somebody and nobody wants to help.

  137. And everybody just wants to do this.

  138. Everyone just gazes. Or records and nobody wants to

  139. help you like me have probably seen videos in Subway's or in

  140. just other areas. We're someone is getting beaten

  141. by a crowd or a mob or whatever the situation may be.

  142. And there's more people just watching And won't help.

  143. And there's just something inside of me that just Says I

  144. got to help them, you know, and I've never been in a situation

  145. like that, that's of that serious of a nature.

  146. But just a couple days ago, I was driving down the road,

  147. taking Peyton to school down, West Bridgewater, right?

  148. Past where the Market Basket is over there.

  149. And I see right ahead of me as I'm driving towards West

  150. Bridgewater Center. I just see plastic go

  151. everywhere, just an explosion of plastic.

  152. Now, that's the way cars, you know, Collide.

  153. Now you don't hear much of a sound other than just the

  154. crunching of plastic and The pieces go everywhere.

  155. There was a probably 17 18 year old boy, who I would assess from

  156. what I saw was not paying attention.

  157. And rear-ended someone who was trying to make a left, turn onto

  158. a side street. The trunk of the front car was

  159. completely collapsed. I could see into the backseat of

  160. his car was completely just sitting, you know what, I was

  161. thinking at that moment, get the car off the road, I got

  162. somewhere to go. No, my thought was this and I

  163. hope they're okay. And you know what I did, when

  164. the car didn't move, I put the hazards on and I'm not, you

  165. know, I don't want to strain too hard to Pat myself on the back

  166. because I have a feeling a lot of people here would have done

  167. the same thing. If you're in the same situation,

  168. I got out of the car, and I asked this young man, are you,

  169. okay? And he was shell-shocked, he you

  170. could tell he was on the verge of tears, just talking to me.

  171. As I said, it's okay, it's going to be.

  172. Okay, don't panic the police come and I check out the people

  173. that can really help our here. It's time for me to go and get

  174. paid In school before she gets to tardy.

  175. And so we are good to go, but you know why?

  176. It just I want to help that's something very small.

  177. I'll talk about someone's soul. Let's talk about the fact that

  178. there's eternity' on the line that people that we know and

  179. maybe people that we don't know, are going to go someday to

  180. either Heaven or Hell. There is no between there is no

  181. limbo, there is no state that lies in the middle for those

  182. Souls who weren't quite bad enough for hell, but weren't

  183. quite good enough for heaven. As some of you were taught when

  184. you were growing up no there is none of that everyone is going

  185. to die. Unless Jesus Christ comes first,

  186. the Bible says been appointed unto man.

  187. Once to die and after this the judgment.

  188. And so just the fact that there is this difficulty in life,

  189. compels us to want to tell other people about Jesus Christ.

  190. But here's what I often find the desire is there. but there's

  191. This disconnect of not knowing what to do, or maybe not sure

  192. how you fit into the grand scheme of things.

  193. Well, I've had people say this pasture.

  194. I couldn't win souls, I'm not available on Saturday, at 10:00,

  195. Like will you have missed the mark of what we're trying to

  196. accomplish because soul don't just get saved on Saturday from

  197. 10 to noon. It's far more than that, it's

  198. more than a program. It's a lifestyle of looking at

  199. people as Souls that need a savior.

  200. And so I want us to go through actually go through some

  201. paperwork and some lessons here. Some of these are things that we

  202. have gone over in the past and we have a couple videos.

  203. I might be able to show you here in the next few weeks as well.

  204. But what I really want to do On these Wednesday night's is give

  205. you some tutorials on how to win people to Christ.

  206. How did walk people through the Romans road?

  207. If you will, and then also on Sunday morning, to really, just

  208. encourage the heart. And really speak to the heart

  209. about why this is something that we all should do why we want to

  210. move forward in Soul winning. So First, Peter chapter number

  211. 3. This is where we're going to

  212. kind of jump off from here tonight before I give you your

  213. handouts. 1st Peter, chapter number three, let me get a drink

  214. of water. Look at verse number 12.

  215. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous.

  216. Sometimes we think about the eyes of the Lord, holy Lords

  217. watching, like, it's a bad thing, because the eyes of the

  218. Lord are over the righteous, it's not just when we do wrong,

  219. he's with us when we do, right? He's protecting us.

  220. He's helping us. He strengthening us the eyes of

  221. the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their

  222. prayers. But the face of the Lord is

  223. against them that do evil. And who is he?

  224. That will harm you. If ye be followers of Of that,

  225. which is good. You know, the point that's being

  226. made here if we do, right, who can touch us If we do, right,

  227. who can stop us, say, well, Pastor didn't you remember on

  228. Sunday night, you read at the end of Hebrews chapter 11, that

    Hebrews 11 chapter mention

  229. some were burned and some were Saudis under and all those

  230. things. Well, it sounds like they were

  231. stopped, you think that stopped him?

  232. They were absent in the body and present with the Lord?

  233. The very next moment. There were sure that their

  234. Earthly time may have been cut short by the way, man reckons

  235. years. But in God's eyes.

  236. Listen, they went from speaking. His name to being in his

  237. presence, what an amazing. Thing that is.

  238. And so sometimes it without getting too far ahead of where

  239. we are. Sometimes there's a level of

  240. fear that comes into sharing our faith with other people.

  241. Well, what are they going to do? What are they going to say?

  242. What are they going to think? How are they going to react?

  243. Listen if God be for us, who can be against us?

  244. I don't want to oversimplify it because I don't want to pretend,

  245. like those fears aren't real things because they are real and

  246. we do deal with it. The devil tries to stifle our

  247. voice when it comes to talking about the Lord.

  248. But listen, who is it? He the no harm you.

  249. If he be followers of that, which is good, but, and if you

  250. suffer for righteousness, sake, happy are ye and be not afraid

  251. of their Terror, neither be trouble, just going along with

  252. what we just said, but look at verse number 15.

  253. But sanctify, the Lord God in your heart said sanctify

  254. yourself. That set him apart in your

  255. heart. I could preach a whole message

  256. just on this idea of sanctifying the Lord God in your heart,

  257. because that's such a rich thought, right there

  258. sanctification is the process of not just cleaning but also being

  259. set apart for a specific surface.

  260. A purpose, just like the vessels in the Tabernacle and Temple

  261. would have been Sanctified. They were set apart for specific

  262. service. That's why when Delta shatters

  263. Feast use those things that were Sanctified set apart for Lourdes

  264. use, and all of a sudden they're drinking out of it and have it,

  265. a drunken orgy, with these things that were Sanctified, the

  266. hand of the Lord rights on the wall that have been weighed in

  267. the balances and found wanting. And so that we're to set apart

  268. the Lord, God in our hearts sanctify, the Lord God in your

  269. heart. And here's here's where we need

  270. to kind of get down to tonight and be ready.

  271. Always to give an answer to every man that asketh you.

  272. A reason of the hope that is in you With meekness and fear.

  273. When I ask you this question tonight, don't answer it out

  274. loud, but answered in your heart.

  275. Can you always be ready to give an answer to every man?

  276. That asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with

  277. meekness and fear. Even if we could say, yes, I am

  278. able to in any moment at any time I can give a testimony of

  279. how Jesus Christ Save Me. Maybe you can't say that

  280. tonight. I'm not saying it's impossible,

  281. but I'm saying, is this There's a great deal who cannot but

  282. maybe want to and there are also the rest of us who I would say.

  283. This know we could do it better. There are some who maybe could

  284. not explain exactly how the Lord save them as far as taking

  285. someone through the gospel and explaining it.

  286. All sure. They went through the gospel,

  287. but they're having trouble explaining it to someone else.

  288. It that's understandable. There are things that we do

  289. that. Sometimes we can do, but we have

  290. trouble explaining to someone else, how to do it.

  291. And so, There are those who need to work on them but the rest of

  292. us would have to say this. I mean, I could take someone

  293. down the Romans road. If someone came up to me right

  294. now and said, what must I do to be saved?

  295. I would be able to through the scriptures.

  296. Be able to teach them and show them what the Bible says.

  297. But here's it could I do it better?

  298. Absolutely, because most of the time of the people, I've led to

  299. Christ. It's not been them.

  300. Walking up to me saying, what must I do to be saved?

  301. There's a lot of stuff you have to cut through.

  302. Do we get to the point for them to be interested in?

  303. In understanding. And so, what I want to go

  304. through through these Wednesday night, sessions is to be able to

  305. try to encourage you to exhort you, to be able to Give people

  306. an opportunity to understand what God has already done in

  307. your heart. You know, in many ways,

  308. witnessing and soul winning are two different things.

  309. We use, those terms, almost interchangeably.

  310. And I will say, I use them interchangeably to, but in a lot

  311. of ways, they are separate entities.

  312. If you are a witness. For instance, if I was to be

  313. cold to a court, to witness be a witness for what I saw at an

  314. accident yesterday. Well, all I would be doing,

  315. would be recounted. Ting.

  316. What I had seen and witnessing is a very important thing.

  317. You know, sometimes we can't get out a whole gospel message to

  318. somebody, but you know what you can do, you can be a witness.

  319. You can speak of the Lord. You can speak of his goodness.

  320. You can just talk about maybe What the Lord Has Done in your

  321. life and you can do it very quickly.

  322. Sometimes you may only have a few seconds and you can just

  323. slip that in, you know what that is?

  324. That's being a witness. I think a witness it being For

  325. the Lord. I'm not downplaying that at all.

  326. That's an important thing because there are many times

  327. that's about all you can get in because the situation I've told

  328. you before, you're not going into a long missive on the

  329. Romans road at the checkout line at Walmart.

  330. First of all, yet to find a check at all.

  331. Don't want to go back there again.

  332. All right, now, going back there again, you're not going to be

  333. able to do that, but you can be a witness to somebody just by

  334. the way you handle yourself or buy a conversation that Comes up

  335. or you just say something about the Lord, praise the Lord,

  336. something like he said well what difference does that make?

  337. Well it's certainly better than probably what they've heard from

  338. the two people before you in the checkout line.

  339. If the lord's name was used, it probably wasn't prays before it

  340. and so you're just being a witness and so we need to do

  341. better at just being a general witness of the Lord everywhere

  342. we go. But to actually win a soul is

  343. the next step. It is to say, not only do I

  344. recognize as best as I can tell, from what you have told me, you

  345. are not saved, but I want to actively convinced you from the

  346. word of God. To be saved.

  347. Could you see the difference between those two?

  348. Not every opportunity, they soul-winning opportunity.

  349. But I would say this, there are a lot more people here tonight

  350. that would probably be comfortable witnessing then they

  351. would be Soul winning. Oh, I'll be a witness for the

  352. Lord, I'll hand out of track. I'll give praise to the Lord.

  353. I'll even talk about how, What the Lord Has Done in my life to

  354. somebody. But if they said to me, you know

  355. what, I love, what the Lord did to, I love hearing that, and

  356. I've been thinking about that myself.

  357. So what should I do? And you'd say, well, let's call

  358. my pastor. No, I hope you can and I hope I

  359. can help you. I'm not downplaying.

  360. That that certainly better than nothing.

  361. But don't you think? Every single one of us should

  362. have quarter this verse have, an ability to give an answer for

  363. the hope that hope that's the gospel that's within us.

  364. And by the way, not doing it with the wrong Spirit, or the

  365. wrong attitude, because what's the attitude?

  366. At the end of the verse with meekness and fear.

  367. Now, I'm afraid the fear that we have is mostly the fear of like,

  368. Not giving the gospel, but I don't believe that's what it's

  369. talking about. I believe it's talking about.

  370. Well, the only kind of fear that makes this Boulder and that's

  371. the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord, is the beginning of

  372. knowledge. The fear of the Lord is

  373. beginning of wisdom. With the end of the

  374. Ecclesiastes. Tells us a fear God, and keep

  375. his Commandments. For this is the whole duty of

  376. man meekness is not weakness. Weakness is not this milquetoast

  377. type Behavior, meekness is power under control.

  378. It is saying I have power that can be Unleashed but I am

  379. actually leasing it for the proper use for God's glory.

  380. And Moses was a Meek man. And I'll tell you this, he had

  381. no problem getting words out at least once Brian wants to the

  382. Lord. Got a hold of him, right?

  383. Like we were talking about before church, right, because it

  384. first, he was slowed speech. And God says, I'll send you are

  385. in after a few chapters. Moses says, it's alright Erin, I

  386. got this now because you don't ever hear from Erin again,

  387. unless he's complaining. About something or building a

  388. golden calf. So what do we do?

  389. We have to understand for our nature.

  390. How to be a witness but also how to win a soul to Christ.

  391. What would happen and what would happen if we preached on a

  392. Sunday morning and three people walk the aisle to get saved.

  393. Man, I tell you what, I that's what I pray for and I pray that

  394. we can continue that way. But who would be able to take a

  395. Bible and just show someone let me take you through what it

  396. means to be saved. Say, well, that's what the

  397. church workers do or that's what the people who go to Bible

  398. College student, honestly, that's what any of us should be

  399. able to do. And what I want to Endeavor to

  400. do over the next few weeks is to talk to you about how to do

  401. that. And you don't have to be an

  402. expert at it. You don't have to have all the

  403. answers. And by the way, this doesn't

  404. mean this verse doesn't mean you have to have every answer for

  405. every question. It means that you are willing to

  406. be able to have the conversation and that you studied it up

  407. because I found this to be true. A lot of people can tell you A

  408. lot about movies and television and sports stats.

  409. But they can't tell you a lick about how someone else should

  410. get saved. Let doesn't seem right.

  411. I mean, if you do more Tom, Brady stats and you don't know

  412. how to lead someone to Christ you flip probably the level of

  413. importance there. We talked about that on Sunday,

  414. didn't wait the corruptible Crown versus The Incorruptible

  415. Crown. So I want us to take some time

  416. and to over the next few weeks and really have a burden about

  417. this and to grow that burden into a call.

  418. All. So I'm going to give you some

  419. handouts here. I'd we're not going to get

  420. through all of these tonight. But there is for I didn't staple

  421. these because some of you may want a hole punch them if you

  422. want. That's fine, there's four page

  423. but events put you to work since you've been in been around for a

  424. while. It just four pages a piece.

  425. I think you'll see it's too. That's the that's the last one

  426. right there. All right she's a hand these to

  427. just bring them back every week. I'll try to have some extras.

  428. Bring them back with you. I will be able to help you now

  429. on Sunday and over the next couple weeks on Sunday mornings,

  430. I want to talk to you about some of the ways that we can

  431. Implement Soul, winning here, at Liberty, Baptist Church, and

  432. there's some some tweaks that I want to make to some of the

  433. programs that we run. Because I think there's some

  434. things that we do, but there's things that we can do better.

  435. But one of the things that was vitally important is that we

  436. need as many people as possible. Just telling people about the

  437. gospel. And again, if you're already

  438. thinking, look, pastor this A morning thing it doesn't, it

  439. doesn't work for me. You're missing.

  440. What is really at hand here? Because I know Saturday morning

  441. doesn't work for everybody. I know some of you work.

  442. I know some of your other commitments that's fine but

  443. everyone comes in contact with people that need the gospel.

  444. And so I want to go over some of these materials with you.

  445. And again we are not by any shape or form going to miss this

  446. or going to get all of this here tonight.

  447. And this will be online as well if you want to go back and

  448. listen to some of this. Again, we should be able to have

  449. these recorded and have these online for you even if you miss

  450. one of them in years past, we used to do these on Saturday, to

  451. kind of get you into the ability to be there on Saturday, but I

  452. want to try to do something a little bit different and get a

  453. greater amount of people here and I think this will do it.

  454. So here's here's the first page and this is maybe all we get to

  455. tonight. How to have a greater burden for

  456. the Lost. Maybe you would say this

  457. tonight, Pastor, I just really don't have a great burden for

  458. Lost. I don't I know I should I know

  459. that at some level that I should have more of this desire to win

  460. people to Christ, or at least to share my faith but I don't feel

  461. that And there can be a disconnect sometimes with that

  462. in our lives. And I remember times early on in

  463. my Christian life that I would just pray because I had a pastor

  464. who preached on Soul winning. I feel like brother Turner about

  465. every message about winning. If it wasn't two months that he

  466. was at Matthew chapter, 28 preaching on the Great

  467. Commission, something was wrong about every 2 months.

  468. I feel like we were back in Matthew chapter 28, going over

    Matthew 28 chapter mention

  469. the Great Commission over again. And there were times that I

  470. would just pray, Lord, give me a burden for the Lost.

  471. Just I want to see the lost like You do just give me a burden for

  472. the lost and there's nothing inherently wrong with that

  473. prayer. But at one point, brother,

  474. Turner was preaching and he said something along these lines.

  475. He says, you know, God doesn't just give burdens like they just

  476. float down from heaven and you know there's a burden from

  477. Heaven just kind of floats back and forth like a feather, it's

  478. like oh if I could just grab a burden and I've I'll get one

  479. eventually and then, you know, I got it.

  480. I finally, I got my burden, I'm ready to go.

  481. That's typically not the way it works.

  482. I would say when it comes to having a burden for the lost,

  483. it's a lot like a fire. It's a lot like a fire.

  484. A fire can be stoked. A fire can be diminished.

  485. Depending on what you put in it. Or you don't put it and I feel

  486. like a burden for the Lost does have some prerequisites that

  487. come before it, some things that will help you burn hotter for

  488. the loss to win them and some things that honestly Kukui off

  489. from wanting to win other people to Christ.

  490. Now I will say this, this little chart here, this little pyramid

  491. that you have here not Egyptian or any of that nature but it is

  492. not necessarily given to you in a Biblical order.

  493. I would I would say that that's not the case but I would say

  494. there's a general principle here that I think will be helpful to

  495. you even if it's not necessarily found in this order every single

  496. way, but how to have a greater burden for the Lost?

  497. What's the very bottom of this pyramid?

  498. What's the very bottom of the triangle could put it this way.

  499. What's the base? Well, here it is.

  500. Salvation. Hey, you want to win?

  501. Souls to Christ, get saved. That's a start.

  502. Now, I've heard that there are people who unsaved have led

  503. people to Christ, and then later on, they realized that they were

  504. unsaved and and can God do that. Well, sure.

  505. Can who's going to muzzle the Lord?

  506. And his, his word is, what saves, isn't it?

  507. And so, it's not the person that say that.

  508. I love it with little kids who come up to me, sometimes,

  509. specialized, youth pastor and they would say, oh, no, brother

  510. Rivero, brother, Adam, thanks for saving me and like, oh, you

  511. don't want that honey, you really don't want.

  512. Brother Adam to save you but I know what they mean.

  513. It means that I was the one that led them to Christ and that's a

  514. sweet thing. I mean, I just got a call.

  515. I got a call from Chuck. Yeah, there's a week or two ago,

  516. probably took you to the first time you got to leave Sola

  517. Christ at the team rally and he was just over the moon.

  518. I said, I said, you know, you get one and I said, you get a

  519. taste of one. You said you, you won't want to

  520. stop and he was just so excited about that.

  521. Sound like he just won, you know, a state championship or

  522. something, he won someone to Christ.

  523. Not tell you, that's a great. Like, but you know what?

  524. You really got to start with salvation and that's the basis.

  525. And so I would just say here tonight, even though I know the

  526. crowd that I'm talking to just know that, you know, that you're

  527. saved if you don't know Jesus Christ, as your savior, I mean,

  528. oh, I know him. I've heard of him, I talked

  529. about him to know that you have gotten saved the gospel way.

  530. Meaning this that, you know, that you're a sinner and that

  531. you've called Upon Jesus Christ to save you in Repentance

  532. knowing the only, he can save you that it's not your works.

  533. It's not church membership. It's not being a good person.

  534. None of those things. Listen, that's the basis of it.

  535. If you don't know that tonight, can I tell you?

  536. You probably got about 20. People would love to lead you to

  537. Christ right now. So what we'd love to make you a

  538. test case, all right but what really tonight is the night of

  539. salvation for you. And so I don't want to dwell on

  540. that other than to say that that really is the basis.

  541. Like you can't have a burden, a real burden for the lost and

  542. you're lost yourself. I think that's just common

  543. sense. Next is baptism, is baptism why

  544. is baptism important? Well, I preach in this a few

  545. weeks ago but baptism is the next logical step of obedience

  546. in the Christian Life that you're saved and you're

  547. baptized. And so I have found this to be

  548. true. That there are some people who

  549. have resisted baptism. There's some people who have

  550. decided, you know, for whatever reason to not be baptized or for

  551. whatever the reason may be. And there are sometimes the

  552. things in the life. They just don't click until they

  553. are able to take that first step of obedience.

  554. And so, Them is very, very important as well.

  555. Again, I'm not saying that only people who are baptized can win

  556. people to Christ. That's not what I'm saying.

  557. I'm saying is this, is that this is part of obedience and well if

  558. we don't obey the lord well then we do lose some of our natural

  559. fire to do his will. And so I think that's important.

  560. Here's what's next. That third level their Bible

  561. reading, Bible reading. Study to show thyself what

  562. approved unto God a Workman that needs not to be ashamed rightly

  563. dividing. The word of Truth.

  564. The Bible tells us that we are to be ambassadors for Christ.

  565. And what, how are we ambassadors.

  566. We're bringing the word of God to people.

  567. It is very hard to have a burden to give the word of God to

  568. others, when you're not regularly reading.

  569. It yourself. And I can tell you that the

  570. periods that I have gone in my Christian Life, where I'm not

  571. reading the word of God, like I should or maybe I could put this

  572. way. I'm just going through the

  573. motions just so that I can check off the box or someone asks me.

  574. If you don't listen to it we're doing this at our house this

  575. year. We've never done this before

  576. that. We're all in.

  577. The same Bible reading plan for the year.

  578. I'm enjoying it but I'll tell you, it puts the feet, the fire

  579. a little bit because if Diane says, Hey in our reading today,

  580. what did you think about XYZ? And I'd say Try to go back in

  581. the memory bank. I know I've read that before.

  582. What does it say? No, I need to read it that day

  583. and so, but the problem with that can be is that maybe I've

  584. read it so that if she asked me, I have an answer instead of just

  585. reading it, so that I can be blessed and have the Lord speak

  586. to me and help me encouraged me and and change me into his

  587. image. And so I would say this, if you

  588. are not in a regular Bible reading Habit in your life,

  589. you're not going to have the bird.

  590. That you ought to have to give the word of God to other people

  591. because it's like you saying here, this will help you.

  592. I just don't use it very much myself, you understand what I'm

  593. saying? So so so having Bible reading

  594. that Bible time for yourself. And I don't want to belabor this

  595. point too long either because we talked about this as well,

  596. during going forward in our daily walk.

  597. But have that time of Bible reading next prayer.

  598. We're in again. These These are are not even

  599. necessarily in an order that I would say or scriptural, but I

  600. just think each of these are important prayer.

  601. Do you know why prayer is so important?

  602. Well, I mean we could go all night talk about why prayer is

  603. so important. But in the context of what we're

  604. talking about here, why is why is prayer important one?

  605. Because there are people that we need to give the gospel to that,

  606. we need to pray for. You might have a list of people

  607. that you are praying for receive Jesus Christ as Savior.

  608. Some of them are in our prayer bulletin.

  609. Some of them are just maybe personal lists that you You have

  610. of people that you are praying that the Lord will save family

  611. members. Longtime friends, acquaintances

  612. people that you come across at the at the coffee shop or at the

  613. store. It seems like you see him a

  614. couple of times a week and these are people that you're praying

  615. for your just trying to witness here and there, you know, put a

  616. little witness in and then see where the Lord allows you to

  617. bring a greater conversation in. But what we really need to do is

  618. pray for the loss and I have a list of verses.

  619. I don't I'm not going to give it to you tonight.

  620. But how often the Bible talks about us praying for the lost

  621. and that is such an important thing for us to do to pray for

  622. the loss. We pray on Sunday mornings.

  623. One of the things we pray for God, bring the lost here, to

  624. Liberty, Baptist Church so that we can give them the gospel, so

  625. that they can get saved. And so we want to pray for the

  626. loss, but you know what prayer is also important?

  627. Because we need to pray for opportunities.

  628. To talk to the Lost. And I will say this, it, I have

  629. found and Paul calls it. This adore of utterance, a door

  630. of utterance a place where he could just speak freely about

  631. the gospel. There are just times that you

  632. don't think you're gonna be able to talk to someone about the

  633. Lord, but maybe you've been praying that God would give an

  634. opportunity to all of a sudden in the strangest place.

  635. Someone wants to talk or someone wants to have this conversation

  636. with you. Well, what happened?

  637. You've been praying that God would give that that door of

  638. utterance and I will say this, when I pray for God to help me

  639. find Souls, I seem to find a way to find him and when I don't,

  640. I'm not looking for him. And so, and this isn't just a

  641. mental trick, by the way, there's just, you know, psyche

  642. myself it putting too fine. And so let's kind of kind of

  643. talk about like a mantra. I just keep saying it over and

  644. over again. Lord, Give Me Your Soul.

  645. Give me your soul. Give me your soul and I just

  646. find somebody. No, we're talking about the Lord

  647. enabling you. And the Lord, who is the creator

  648. and ruler over all super naturally, allowing you to cross

  649. paths. With people, that maybe you

  650. wouldn't normally cross paths with, for the opportunity to

  651. give them the gospel. I'll tell you.

  652. You start praying for the loss, it will increase your burden,

  653. it'll increase your fire, pray for visits.

  654. Pray for people. You have visited in the past

  655. people that you've given tracks to.

  656. I don't know their names, that's fine.

  657. You just pray for them and pray that God would use those

  658. distributions or that God would use.

  659. A track that you gave to that waiter or that waitress, or

  660. whoever it is, or at the checkout stand, that God would

  661. use that and that's what we pray.

  662. Here's what's next? Holy living, not a popular

  663. conversation today, but what is it?

  664. What, what does the Lord say? Be ye holy for.

  665. I am Holy. We are to live lives that are

  666. wholly, by the way. That word, sanctify, the Lord

  667. Jesus in your hearts. How can you sanctify?

  668. The Lord Jesus in your heart and refuse.

  669. Holy living. I mean, that would be like

  670. saying in the Tabernacle. Well, you know, clean the

  671. vessels. Don't clean them.

  672. Does it really even matter? Well, I don't know.

  673. Need a by who brought down Strange Fire from the Lord they

  674. died and so I would say it probably did matter that that

  675. the house of the Lord was Sanctified.

  676. And so here's here's I was going to put this just as plainly as I

  677. can. If I'm in my own little world of

  678. sin, I don't care if other people get saved or not.

  679. If I'm just living in my own little world of saying, I don't

  680. care whether people get saved or not.

  681. And to be honest with you, I'm losing opportunities to be able

  682. to tell people about Christ because of where I'm going, or

  683. what I'm doing, or what I'm posting.

  684. And so because of that, all of a sudden, those opportunities are

  685. they Imagine This? Imagine that someday.

  686. I feel like at the Judgment seat of Christ, there's going to be

  687. tears before we get to have him because he's wiping all the

  688. tears away from us. So somewhere from after between,

  689. after we pass. And when we enter the gates of

  690. pearl, someone's going to cry. And I have a feeling some of it

  691. is going to be, you know, by and by when I look on his face,

  692. beautiful face Thorn shadowed face by.

  693. And by when I look on his face, I wish I had given him more that

  694. song that I love so much that we sing sometimes.

  695. But can you imagine being shown? And and this is the thing that

  696. if everything's quiet and I meditate on this that really

  697. gives me pause and causes me to think Because I was so busy

  698. indulging in something that I knew.

  699. I had no business, indulging him or partaking in a lifestyle that

  700. I knew that I shouldn't have partaken in, especially when I

  701. was younger. When I first, when I first got

  702. saved that, there would be people, that wouldn't get saved

  703. because of my testimony. Because if I went to them with

  704. the gospel, they'd say you You. That's a hard thing.

  705. Not long after I got saved. I got discouraged.

  706. I had a lot of people tell me, I'll go back to the Lutheran

  707. Church. Know that the Baptist's, you

  708. know, the whole salvation thing they were just they were just, I

  709. went through a time of confusion for for many months and I went

  710. back to watching whatever kind of movies I wanted to watch and

  711. going out and partying. However, I wanted to and all

  712. those things I never got into a lot of trouble.

  713. The Lord protected me from a lot of it, but I'll tell you this,

  714. there was a lot of people that once I got right with the Lord,

  715. Had no desire to hear anything from me about the Lord, because

  716. it will, who are you? You say?

  717. But you do this, you see. Do the you talking about, you're

  718. talking about Jesus, but you're doing the same stuff we were

  719. doing like, three weeks ago. so, if you want to have a burden for

  720. the Lost, I mean, I know we can't live a perfect life.

  721. I mean certainly we could if we always listen to the promptings

  722. of the Holy Spirit, we do have that ability but let's just be

  723. honest that we understand first. John 1:9 makes clear.

    1 John 1:9

  724. We're going to need to confess our sins. but at the same time,

  725. if holy living isn't a priority, there are people that we are

  726. going to miss The people we're going to miss, you know, the

  727. drinking buddies need to get saved.

  728. And that doesn't mean keep drinking with them.

  729. The old gang needs to get saved. That doesn't mean you get to run

  730. around with the old gang, the way that you used to the people

  731. at the office, need to get saved.

  732. But that doesn't mean you talk like everyone else in the office

  733. talks. Well, you know, I just got to be

  734. like them and that's how I'm going to win them to Christ.

  735. No, that's exactly the opposite way to him Christ.

  736. And that's what Satan wants to tell you.

  737. And even, listen and friend, we're on our social media and

  738. some of us have it some of us don't we want to be careful.

  739. What we put on there. What we posed I'm Talking about

  740. being fake. But I'm saying is this, if we're

  741. singing the Praises of the Lord, one day and then we have cursing

  742. and all kinds of stuff other days, we got to be careful about

  743. that or what we link onto. And so these are things that are

  744. so easy to get a part of, but what happens in Heavens that,

  745. you know, the everyone's individual responsible to get

  746. safe. Everyone's individual

  747. irresponsible, but if I'd known that, I could have been a better

  748. testimony to somebody, but I was so busy indulging in something.

  749. I didn't need to indulge in. I know the term that is used in

  750. ezekiel's. You Blood on the hands.

  751. Blood on the hands. Meaning that if you had, if you

  752. saw the enemy approaching and you didn't sound the trumpet,

  753. then you were blood guilty for everyone who died in that City.

  754. And imagine for us because we were so busy being involved in

  755. our quote unquote stuff. Maybe we can put a Hebrews 12:1,

    Hebrews 12:1

  756. you know, one and two, the weights and the sins.

  757. They were so busy in that that we didn't have the opportunity

  758. to win people to Christ. That's a that's a heavy thing,

  759. that's a heavy thing. And so to live the way that God

  760. wants you to live. That's that's an important

  761. thing. And that's part of having a

  762. burden for the lost and then next, right near the top is

  763. church attendance and that's probably the longest one in the

  764. shortest box. So I'm sorry about that.

  765. Church attendance. Oh Pastor you saying people only

  766. people go to church can win people to Christ.

  767. What I'm saying? I'm saying this is when you're

  768. going to church when you're a part.

  769. When you are, when you were part of the mechanism that God has

  770. instituted to fulfill the Great Commission.

  771. When you are part of it, you are naturally going to have a

  772. greater burden than if you were separated from that same

  773. institution. God wants us as a church as an

  774. organization as an organism to go out.

  775. Living breathing organism to go out and Reach people for Christ.

  776. When we are outside of that, we just don't have the same

  777. wherewithal to go and Reach people for Christ.

  778. And so that's why it's so vitally important.

  779. I've seen, we had people sitting in this room right now.

  780. We've got saved on a Wednesday night.

  781. I'm glad we have Wednesday night church.

  782. We've had people who got saved on Sunday night or come to

  783. church first on a Sunday night. I'm glad we still have Sunday

  784. night church, their churches that don't have Sunday nights

  785. and some of the don't have Wednesday nights.

  786. Don't we feel like so much more as we see?

  787. See the day approaching. Why?

  788. Because there's a great need out there for us to be able to reach

  789. people for Christ. And so I'm going to leave us

  790. here tonight where we got really far with me through one page.

  791. But but that's okay because I do want to set some ground work,

  792. but I want to ask you this tonight and And then I'm going

  793. to give you a story, then we'll be done.

  794. Are you prepared? For someone to ask you.

  795. How do I get? Say the pastor doesn't happen

  796. that way. You know, it's funny.

  797. You say that? Well, you didn't say that but

  798. just for for argument sake, it's funny you say that I've been

  799. preparing this knowing that this is the direction we're going

  800. Wednesday night for a few weeks and it's I knew this is what I

  801. want to do. Even though I knew her supposed

  802. to get in a revelation, but I knew in I want to have as many

  803. people as possible on Wednesday nights for this and this was the

  804. way to go. So the last couple weeks I've

  805. really been assured, this wasn't do in preparing this this

  806. morning and my wife texted me about 1:00 today and she said

  807. this, I'm talking to and she said the name and I'm not going

  808. to say the name of the person. Because I pray this person will

  809. come and give their testimony, not me telling their story for

  810. them. But I do want to say this, we

  811. pray for. So, and so, right now, right now

  812. and so, well, here in the office and of course, I took some time

  813. to pray over the situation. Well, Diane calls me few minutes

  814. later. And and she says this, she says,

  815. the name of the person she says She just got saved.

  816. And I kind of like, one of these.

  817. What did you say that? She got saved.

  818. So we were literally just talking on the phone.

  819. She texted me and said, could we talk?

  820. And we were talking small talk for a few minutes and she said

  821. something along these lines that I'm going to get as close as I

  822. can. To what Diane told me and she

  823. said this, I've really been thinking that I need to have

  824. Jesus. Be my savior.

  825. Really been thinking that I need to have Jesus be my same.

  826. Heard the message here, many times.

  827. That's awesome. That's why we're here.

  828. That's why we're here. And so what did she do?

  829. She was able to through the scriptures over the phone.

  830. It's, by the way, people can get saved outside of turkey over the

  831. phone. It just so happens that that she

  832. made a profession of Faith this afternoon.

  833. I'm praying that she continues. It moves on and and and what a

  834. wonderful thing that will be. But it's got saying what if

  835. somebody came up to you and said I really been thinking about

  836. This getting saved thing. Really been thinking about it.

  837. Would you be able to give an answer to every man?

  838. That asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with

  839. meekness and fear? That's not a pastor question.

  840. That's a Peter inspired by the Holy Ghost question.

  841. Are you able to? Not that, you know, all the ins

  842. and outs of every doctrinal issue.

  843. All the way from Genesis to Revelation because you never

  844. going to get there. But that you can just patiently

  845. lovingly. Take someone threw some

  846. scripture, show them you're lost.

  847. There's a penalty for that, which is death and hell, but

  848. there's a remedy, Jesus Christ who died on the cross, for your

  849. sin and that you can accept that free gift of Salvation by

  850. repenting of your sin and calling upon the stadium.

  851. Are you able to do that tonight? If someone came up to you and

  852. saying, well, well no one's ever come up to me, well, maybe God's

  853. not sending them because you're not ready.

  854. Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of

  855. Liberty, Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing

  856. to you or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us

  857. know by contacting us at info. At my Liberty Baptist dot org.

  858. Or you can visit us this Sunday at eight hundred Washington

  859. Street and East and Massachusetts may the Lord bless

  860. you as you grow in his word. God's not sending them because

  861. you're not ready. Thank you for listening to the

  862. sermon from the pulpit of Liberty, Baptist Church.

  863. If this message was a blessing to you or if there's any way we

  864. can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at info.

  865. At my Liberty Baptist dot org. Or you can visit us this Sunday

  866. at eight hundred Washington Street and East and

  867. Massachusetts may the Lord bless you as you grow in his word.