Free to Serve: Living Strategically for the Sake of the Gospel

Who would be willing to give up their freedom to try and save

other people? That's exactly what Harriet

Tubman did. Maybe you're familiar with the

story of Harriet Tubman. She was born into slavery in

1822, and from a young age she saw the horrors of slavery.

She herself was forced into physical manual labor and often

times was beaten even for the slightest mistake.

At the age of 27, she risked her own life for freedom to escape

slavery, and she was able to do so through a network using the

Underground Railroad. And once she reached

Pennsylvania, which was a Free State, she was free.

Free from the pain and the torture of slavery, free from

all the work and all of the bad conditions there, she was free

to live her own life. So what did Harriet Tubman do

with her freedom? She gave her freedom to go back

to try to save others. She dedicated her life sensing

the Lord calling her to use her life to save other people.

And a year after escaping, she made her first trip back to the

camp where she was to save her family.

And over the next 10 years, she would make at least 13 trips and

save up to 70 slaves for freedom using the Underground Railroad.

Her journey was incredibly dangerous each and every time

she made that decision to go back.

But she gave up her freedom, and she willingly risked her own

life to save others. As believers who have placed our

faith and our hope and our trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and

Savior, we are free. We are free from the power of

sin in our lives. We're free from the power of

death over us. Praise God, we are free in

Christ. So what should we do with our

freedom? Should we as as Harriet had the

option of living her life, now her freedom for herself?

Or should we live our lives for a higher calling?

Is there a higher purpose for us to use our freedom?

This morning we're going to see that we are free, but we should

use that freedom not for our own pleasure, not for our own

satisfaction, but in Christ we are free to serve.

We should strive to use our freedom to serve others.

This is how we live strategically for the sake of

the gospel. If you will, open up your Bibles

with me to 1st Corinthians Chapter 9, verses 19 through 27.

First Corinthians chapter 919 through 27.

I'm reading out of the ESV version if you are using your

phone or tablet or anything. The past few chapters Paul has

been emphasizing, if you've been with us for a time, you've heard

a few sermons on this text. If you if you've missed these

sermons, it'd be great to go back and hear.

But over the past few chapters, Paul has been talking about the

freedom that we have in Christ, but how we are to use that

freedom for other people. Pastor Jonah talked about how we

should be free using our freedom in our knowledge to build others

up. Last week, Pastor Jake talked

about how we can use our freedom with our wealth and our

resources and our, the money that we have for the for the to

be generous and to to use it for other people.

And this week we're going to see how Paul instructs us to use our

freedom to serve others in order to win souls to Jesus Christ.

This morning we are going to see how we can cultivate a heart for

winning souls. Master the art of winning souls

and chart a plan for winning souls.

So I'll read First Corinthians Chapter 9, verses 19 through 27.

1 Corinthians 9:19–27

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to

all that I might win more of them.

To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to win the Jews.

To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not

being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law.

To those outside the law I became as one outside the law,

not being outside the law of God, but under the law of

Christ, that I might win those outside the law.

To the weak, I became weak that I might win the weak.

I have become all things to all people, that by all means I

might save some. I do it all for the sake of the

gospel that I may share with them in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only

one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an

imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly, I do

not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and I

keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I

myself should be disqualified. Let's bow for a word of prayer.

Father, we thank You for Your Word to us this morning, and we

recognize that in our own flesh we cannot understand Your Word

and how to apply it to our lives.

And so this morning we ask for the illumination of Your Holy

Spirit to open our eyes to Your Word, that You would give us

ears to hear and eyes to see how we can apply Your Word to our

lives That mean we may walk in it and find the joy that comes

with obeying Your Word. Knowing that Your commands are

not burdensome but joyful. That Your yoke is easy and Your

burden is light. Would you turn our hearts to

long to be obedient to You and Your Word?

In Jesus name we ask, Amen. As believers who have

experienced the freedom of Christ, the first thing we need

to do is we need to cultivate a heart for winning souls.

So before we can talk about how we can live strategically and

intentionally for the sake of the gospel, we first need to

cultivate a heart that wants other people to be saved.

Until we do, until we desire lost people to come to Christ,

we are not going to sacrifice our freedom for them.

In verse 19 of our passage today, Paul says, For though I

am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I

might win more of them. Paul and his Jewish tradition

had been enslaved to these legalistic Jewish standards, and

after having his eyes opened by Jesus, he realized that he had

in his obedience his strict adherence to the law.

He had completely missed Jesus. Now, after having his eyes

opened, he was free. He was free in Christ.

Free now to live his life for the glory of God, free from all

of that baggage of the old legalistic system.

But instead of using his freedom to do whatever he wanted, he

chose to be a servant. Why?

Why would someone willingly give up their freedom in order to

serve other people? He tells us it's so that he

could win them to Christ for the sake of the gospel.

He knew that those who didn't know Christ were lost.

They were as blind as he was before his conversion.

And so because as he reflected back on his blindness, he had

compassion on those who didn't know Jesus.

They were lost. And so he gave his freedom to

serve them in hopes that they too could become free.

He recognized that because he had been saved by the darkness

of the by the power of Jesus, he recognized now that he could be

a channel through which God could bring others to Christ.

For this reason, he decided to live his life in a strategic way

so that others could experience the same freedom that he had in

Christ. We see an example of Paul living

this out in the book of Acts in chapter 16, we read of Paul when

they go to the city of Philippi and, and while they're there,

while they're on their way to the temple, they come in contact

with a a girl who's possessed by a demon.

And he cast the demon out of her.

And her owners are not real happy about that because now

they had earned a lot of money through her fortune telling.

And so they have Paul and Silas put in prison.

Then we read in Acts chapter 16, about midnight, Paul and Silas

Acts 16 · chapter mention

were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were

listening to them. And suddenly there was a great

earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were

shaken. And immediately all the doors

were opened and everyone's bonds were fastened, unfastened.

When the jailer woke up and saw. When the jailer woke up and saw

the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to

kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

But Paul cried out with a loud voice.

Do not harm yourself, for we are all here now.

If the jailer had killed himself, Paul and Silas would

have been free. They now could have escaped, and

they would have been free to go wherever they wanted to go.

But Paul now again risked his own life for the sake of the

gospel. He couldn't stand that this man

would kill himself. And so rather than choosing his

own freedom, he chose to be a servant.

That night, Paul shared the good news of the gospel with that

jailer so that they could come to faith in Christ.

They believed in the Lord. And that very same night they

were baptized into the family of God.

Because Paul put his own freedom on the line for the sake of the

gospel. He was more concerned about

winning souls than his own personal rights and freedoms.

Brothers and sisters, you have been saved from slavery to sin.

You've been saved from a fear of death through the forgiveness of

your sins. You no longer fear death because

you know what is waiting for you on the other side, eternity with

Christ. You could choose to live in your

freedom, to keep that freedom to yourself and all those blessings

that you've received from God. You could keep them to yourself

and live in your own freedom. But what you need to recognize

is that you could be the channel through which God could bring

others to Christ. You know, people who are lost in

their sin, family members, friends, coworkers, they are

slaves to sin and they don't even know it.

Do you have a heart for them? Can we say that we truly love

those people if we're not concerned for their souls?

What is the value of someone's soul?

Listen to what Charles Spurgeon, a preacher in the 1800s, had to

say about the value of a soul. You may I am sorry for that.

You may tell how serious it is to lose the soul from its

intrinsic value. The soul is a thing worth 10,000

worlds, in fact, a thing which worlds on worlds heaped together

like sand upon the seashore, could not buy.

It is more precious than if the ocean had each drop of itself

turned into a Golden Globe, for all that wealth could not buy a

soul. Consider the soul is made in the

image of its Maker. God made man, it is said, in his

own image. The soul is an everlasting

thing, like God. God has gifted it with

immortality, and hence it is precious to lose it.

Then how fearful? Consider how precious a soul

must be when both God and the devil are after it.

You never heard that the devil was after a Kingdom, did you?

No, he is not so foolish. He knows it would not be worth

His winning. He is never after that, but He

is always after souls. You never heard that God was

seeking after a crown, did you? No, He thinketh little of

dominions, but He is after souls.

Every day. His Holy Spirit is seeking His

children, and Christ came to save souls.

Do you think that which hell craves for and that which God

seeks for is not precious? Do you see the value of souls

around you? Do you think they are worth

saving? God could use you to give them

freedom from their sin. We need to cultivate a heart

that sees the value of souls, the lost around us.

We need to understand that if they die apart from Christ, they

will go to hell. They will be lost for all

eternity. But so often we're we're afraid

of sharing the good news of the gospel.

We we maybe don't know how to start a conversation or how do

we begin sharing the good news with them.

As we keep going through our passage this morning, Paul is

going to show us how we can master the art of winning souls.

Now let me start by saying there there is no magic way to share

the gospel so that people accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Jesus shares when he shares the parable of the sower.

He talks about this farmer who goes out and scatters seed and,

and even when it grows, he says the farmer has no idea how we go

out and we sow the seed and we are not the ones who grow it.

It is God who causes that seed to grow.

But we must be faithful to sow the seed.

That's our part. And so Paul gives us a helpful

principle to use in reaching others, which is that we must

become like them. Paul became like others so that

he could build a bridge to the gospel.

To master the art of winning souls.

The first thing you must do is to become like others to show

them Christ. Look at verse 20 and 21.

With me to the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win Jews.

To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not

being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law.

To those outside the law, I became as one outside the law,

not being outside the law of God, but under the law of

Christ, that I might win those outside the law.

Paul intentionally became like others so that he could show

them Christ no matter who he was around.

He tried to be like them. Now he's very careful to say

that he didn't go into sin to do that.

But when he was around Jewish people, even though he believed

that all of the the Old Testament law had now been

fulfilled in Christ, he would sort of take on some of those

traditions. Not in the sense that he thought

they were accomplish anything, but just so that he could sort

of make himself like these people to in order to have a

bridge to the gospel. When he was around people who

weren't following any law at all, he became like them.

Again, he's careful to say I didn't sin.

I was still under the law of Christ.

He's not saying we willingly sin in order to save people.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying I would become like

them, those outside the law, in order to win them.

So he's like, I'm going to try to be like a chameleon in a

sense, no matter where I go, in hopes that I will have an

opportunity to share the gospel with them.

Andrew Nacelli says that Christian liberty for Paul is

not I am free to do whatever I want to do.

It is I am free to be flexible for the sake of the gospel.

Paul was willing to sacrifice on less important issues.

Hey, I'm not going to argue with you about this small thing so

that I can have an opportunity to talk to talk to you about the

greatest importance, salvation through Jesus Christ.

The second thing that we must do to master the art of winning

souls is to become like others to grow them in Christ.

In verse 22, he says to the weak, I became weak that I might

win the weak. I have become all things to all

people that by all means I might save some.

Now as I was studying for this passage, it most commentators

believe that he's not Speaking of those who are lost here when

he says the weak. We refer back to chapter 8 where

Pastor Jonah was talking about the weaker brother and Paul was

willing to to surrender his own rights for the sake of his

weaker brother. And so here we see a desire in

Paul to say, with my brothers and sisters in Christ who are

weaker than me, I'm willing to surrender my rights to help them

grow in Christ. That was his desire, so much so

that he says in verse 13 of chapter 8, if food makes my

brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother

stumble. He was willing to set aside his

freedom to help others grow in Christ.

The third thing we must do to master the art of winning souls

is to become like others, to overflow in Christ together.

Look at verse 23. He says, I do it all for the

sake of gospel that I may share with them in its blessings.

Paul was willing to become like those that he was ministering to

with the hope that they could overflow in the blessings of

Christ together. This is because sharing in

something is the fulfillment of the thing that we enjoy.

Have you ever thought of that before?

When we when we enjoy something, part of the enjoyment of that

thing, actually the completion of that enjoyment of that thing

is going and telling other people and sharing it with them.

I read this amazing book. You have to read it.

It's so good. I watched this new movie.

You, you have to see it. It's so good and even better,

let's watch it together. Have you tried Costco's soft

serve ice cream? It will change your life.

Let's go sometime and eat that ice cream together.

When we do things together, that's actually the joy, the

fulfillment of the joy of the thing that we're enjoying.

Paul had received these incredible blessings from God

and he says, I don't want to enjoy them all by myself.

I want to share in them with you.

And so he's looking for opportunities to share the

gospel with others so that he can share together in the

blessings of God. Growing up, my dad loved to take

us fishing. Over the years, he taught us how

to tie a line. He taught us how to bait a hook.

He taught us how to cast and how to reel.

And at this stage of my life I have a very small understanding

of fishing, but I have enough to to do those basic things.

Now, if you're like me, maybe you're tempted to think that

fishing is all about luck. Often times I look at people

there. There was a guy in high school.

I, I always remember this guy he had AT shirt and it said there's

a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore or looking

like an idiot. And it what that shirt is saying

is like, man, what, what's the difference?

What's the difference in knowing anything about fishing?

No matter what, you just look ridiculous.

You're standing there hoping that a fish is going to bite

your line. And you may be tempted to think,

like me, that it's luck until you fish with someone who knows

what they're doing. OK, everybody has bad days.

But if you know my dad, and if anybody in here has fished with

my dad, you know that he almost always catches more fish than

you. Always without fail, it's

because he knows what he's doing.

You need to know if you're going to catch a fish.

You need to know what types of bait to use, what types of hooks

to use. You need to know the fish that

you're trying to catch when you're fishing.

You have to set aside your desires.

You know, sometimes I'm sitting there and I'm going, hey, I, I

have this Big Mac that I haven't quite finished yet.

Maybe I'll throw that on there. It's like a fish doesn't want to

eat a Big Mac. You have to, I have to set aside

my desires and I have to go, what does this fish want to eat?

Because when I, when I catch the fish, I have to appeal to the

fish and what the fish wants. I have to become one with the

fish and think like a fish if I want to catch the fish.

Well, brothers and sisters, this is exactly what it's like when

it comes to the gospel. All of these people that we know

who don't know Christ are lost and what our desire is to win

them to Christ. And so we need to become like

them. We need to begin to think like

them. What are the things that they

enjoy to talk about? What are the things that they

enjoy doing? And how can I become like them

so that I can gain an audience with them, so that I can have a

conversation, so that hopefully I can bridge to the gospel, I

can find some point of conversation that will lead us

to spiritual things. Because remember, you could be

the channel through whom God could bring others to Christ.

We need to be willing to conform to those around us.

Now, again, remember, Paul doesn't give us a license to

sin. We never sin to save people, but

we are willing to be flexible and maybe talk about things that

I don't like to talk about. Maybe you don't know much about

hockey or football or some other sport, but you have a family

member who loves the Maple Leafs.

Well, you sacrificing your freedoms would be, I hate

hockey, but I'm going to do some research on the Maple Leafs and

find out who the top scorers are so that I can start a

conversation or maybe just ask questions and be interested in

the thing that they're interested about in hopes that I

will have an opportunity to say, hey, actually I was reading this

week. Did you know that guy's a

Christian? What, what does Christianity

mean to you? What does that mean to you?

Find a bridge to the gospel. Maybe you love talking about

politics, but some of you, I know you well and you really

like to get to your opinion. You really like to to lay the

hammer down. And we like to really tell them

why we think their political candidate sucks.

Brothers and sisters, that's not wise.

That's a small issue. And people are turned off by

your arrogance and your pride. Set aside that discussion

because guess what, that Prime Minister, that president is

going to be dead in 50 years. Who cares?

Let's set aside that smaller issue to talk about a far

greater issue, their salvation. Why don't you ask them about

their political party that they like?

Why do you like them? Hey, I value that too.

Find ways to affirm what they believe so that you can get to

the gospel. I'm not saying just a random

conversation. Find things in the conversation

that you can tie and connect and bridge to the gospel to begin

talking about spiritual things. We need to live intentionally,

strategically, so that we can have conversations with people

and become like them so that we have an opportunity to share the

gospel with them. Now, we've seen that Paul had a

heart for winning souls to Christ and that he had mastered

the art of becoming like them. Next, we see that Paul was

diligent to chart a path for winning souls.

Now, if you want to win at anything, you need to make a

plan and stick to it. You need to chart a path.

You need to create a direction of where you're going and begin

to map it out. And that's exactly what Paul

does in this section. He knows what race he's running,

he knows the prize that's up for a grab, and so he lives

intentionally to reach the goal to win the prize.

So the first thing we have to do when we're charting a path or

making a plan is we have to be able to decide what is it?

What race are we trying to run? What are we trying to achieve?

Paul's encouragement to us this morning is run the race of

winning souls to Christ. Look at verse 24.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only

one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.

Now Paul uses this analogy of of running a race which would have

been very familiar to the Corinthians.

They had the Isthmian games that would happen there every two

years. And we remember that Corinth was

a sort of a a hub of activity. It was a cross path of of many

different cities and it was a trade route went through there.

So many different people came together.

So there were a lot of cultures, a lot of gods, a lot of

religions, a lot of different mindsets and activities.

And so with all these people coming in, it was a good

location to have these sorts of games.

And one of the games that they would have are races.

Now what Paul is saying that even though there's many

different people who are competing in this race, how many

win one? There's one that wins.

And so you have to give it all you got.

Paul knew what race he was running.

We have to ask the question, what is Paul talking about when

he's talking about a race? What is Paul trying to win?

Well, he's been telling us five times over the past few verses.

He says to win them, to win them, to win them, to win them.

Paul. Paul's win is people coming to

faith in Christ. That's the race he's running.

He wants to win people to Christ.

And as I was thinking about it this week, we, we live in a

world where there are so many different cultures, so many

different world views. And how many world views wins at

the end of that person's life? One, they choose the thing that

they believe in. So brothers and sisters, we are

running a race of world views, of religion, of faith in Christ.

So we need to run diligently so that those people who are lost

in Christ come to understand who he is and they believe in the

one Savior. The next thing that we need to

do when we're charting a path and making a plan is we need to

run the race with an imperishable prize.

Verse 25, Paul says every athlete exercises self-control

in all things. They do it to receive a

perishable wreath. But we an imperishable, the

athletes in the Ismian Games, they had to be incredibly self

controlled and disciplined in order to win the prize for that

victory was a wreath. And that wreath, and you know,

it started out as being some dry celery that they would, you

know, band together and put on the person's head.

But in the time of the Romans, they made it a a wreath of pine.

And that's what we see. But no matter the case, this

wreath probably didn't last very long, right?

It it faded away. It was perishable.

A runner who wins that race receives a crown that fades.

And guess what? The next time those events come

around, someone else is going to win, and they're going to forget

that you won it the last time. So both the prize and the fact

that you won the race are going to fade away.

They're going to perish. But Paul knew that he was a

running a race that had an imperishable prize, he says in

his letter to the Philippians. I press on toward the goal for

the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

The imperishable prize of being in God's presence through Jesus

Christ lasts for eternity. That honor will never fade.

Therefore, we ought to run the race with discipline and focus.

In verse 26 and 27, he says so. I do not run aimlessly.

I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body

and keep it under control. The word that he uses there for

discipline is actually a word that's associated with a black

eye. It's like I'm willing to to

actually force myself to harm myself, to keep myself

disciplined. That's how intentionally he

lives. And it's because the the value

of the prize is so great that he's willing to sacrifice and

discipline himself. Think of the athletes in the

Games, how disciplined they were, and what do they get out

of it? A leafy crown in the honor of

having won the race, right? At least for that year.

But we know there is a far greater prize in heaven than

anything on earth. Eternity in heaven with our

Savior. How much more should we

discipline ourselves for that prize so that others can receive

that prize? Since eternity is at stake, we

must be disciplined and focused as we seek to win souls to

Christ. Now, this past summer, the

Olympics were held in Paris. I was very thankful for a really

easy illustration. Like man, obviously I'm going to

talk about the Olympics. Over 10,000 athletes from 32

different countries competed in front of billions of viewers

worldwide. All for what?

The hope of winning gold. Now as I was talking with a

friend about the Olympics this week, he he told me this and I

actually didn't know this, but he said, did you know that the

gold medal is not made of pure gold?

I mean, maybe you knew that I didn't know that.

I was a bit surprised by that. It's actually made-up of 95,

about 95% silver and 6 grams of gold.

Now that interestingly that it used to be made out of pure

gold, that was the last time a pure gold medal was handed out

was in 1912. Now a solid gold medal today

would be worth $40,000, but since the medals that were given

out this year only had about 6 grams of gold, they were worth

only about $1000. Now I want you to think about

that $1000, OK? Now I know the athletes are not,

they're not doing it necessarily for the gold medal, they're

doing it for what it is. But let's just look at the gold

medal. It's worth $1000, OK?

Think of all of the countless hours of disciplined training,

of disciplined eating, forcing themselves out of bed in the

morning to go train, to go work. Think of all the times they said

no to family and friends because they needed to go to the gym or

they needed to go run more and and exercise and train.

Think of all the money that they had to invest in the best

trainers, the the healthiest food and the best gym.

They're willing to sacrifice and discipline themselves in all of

those areas for what, $1000 medal?

Now again, as I said, I know it's not just about the medal,

it's about what the medal represents, that you're the

greatest in the world for now because in a few years someone

else is going to win and then no one remembers that you won it.

The prize and the medal, they fade, Brothers and sisters,

souls are worth more than gold and metal.

Peter says that a believer's genuine faith is more precious

than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire.

Through our faith, we are running a race for which we will

receive a prize that will never fade away.

We will be with God in heaven forever, perfect, spotless,

blameless, righteous before him, enjoying all the goodness of

God. He has saved us from the

corruption of the world and giving us the hope that we will

be divine beings ourselves, Peter says.

But God has not saved us to keep this to ourselves.

There are those around us who don't know what Christ has done

for them. God has called us to share the

good news with them. Paul, in his second letter to

the Corinthians, says all this is from God, who through Christ

reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of

reconciliation. That is in Christ.

God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their

trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the ministry of

reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors

for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

As ambassadors for Christ, we must live intentionally.

We must chart a path for winning souls.

It's not going to happen by accident.

You need to be thinking of the people that you come into

contact with on a regular basis and come up with a plan of how

you can begin to start conversations.

How can I start to become like them?

Maybe stop finding out their interests, things that they

enjoy so that I can live intentionally.

This is what I'm going to do. Tomorrow at break.

I'm going to have this conversation with them.

You need to put those plans in place and have ask someone else

to keep you accountable. We need to be intentional so

that we can have an opportunity to share the good news of what

Christ has done with those who don't know.

You could be the channel through which God could bring others to

Christ. In 1731, Anthony Ulrich, who was

a former slave, pleaded with the Moravian Church to send

missionaries to Saint Thomas. This is where he had been

enslaved. And he told them that that in

order to reach those slaves, the person who goes is going to have

to become a slave himself. Because the slaves were forced

to work all day long, and at the end of the day they wouldn't be

able to leave the camp or wherever they were staying.

And so the only way to get in to preach to the slaves was to

become a slave. Or at least so they thought.

Jenner, John Leonard Dober, and David Nichman were ready for the

call. They were willing to give up

their freedom. They said we would be willing to

be sold into slavery, to willingly go into slavery to

reach those people with the gospel.

We would be willing to become like slaves in order to win

their souls. As it turned out, the law of the

land determined that it was illegal.

They, they couldn't actually legally sell themselves into

slavery, so they had to find another way.

And they did. They went through much

opposition, through much persecution.

People told them they what all the struggles and all the

persecutions and all the trials they were going to face.

You're never going to make it. But as they got into the boat

and as they left, as the story goes, they shouted from the

boat, may the lamb that was slain receive the reward of this

suffering. And that's exactly what

happened. Because of their willingness to

surrender their own freedom to become like others, God

eventually saved thousands of souls on that island through the

spread of the gospel. Brothers and sisters, this is

just how Jesus loved us. He willingly set aside his own

freedom to come to live the perfect life of righteousness

that you and I could never live to die is the sacrifice that

that we didn't deserve to die the death that we did deserve.

He was raised from the grave on the third day and ascended into

heaven where he now sits and pleads for those who are His

children. One day Jesus is going to return

and take those who have trusted in His sacrifice and give them

an eternal reward for their faith and their trust in Him.

Have you placed your faith in God's Son as your Saviour?

What is stopping you from doing that today?

No one has seen a greater love than that.

We would love to talk with you about what that means for you to

place your faith in Jesus Christ.

We will be here, I'll be here. I would love to talk with you

about what that means to have all of your sins forgiven and to

have peace in Christ. But if you have put your faith

in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you are free from the

power of sin and death. Brothers and sisters, use your

freedom to serve others, to become like them in hopes that

you can share the good news of Jesus Christ with them in order

to win their souls to Christ. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your incredible grace in our lives.

We thank you for saving us and Lord, if we're honest, if

anybody in this room is is like me, then it when it comes to

sharing the gospel with people, we are terrified or we are so

afraid of what people will think of us, what they will save us.

Lord, in our honesty, that's how we feel.

But we pray that you would give us a boldness and a courage that

when we see others and and we hesitate to to inconvenience

them with a conversation about spiritual things.

Would you help us to know the value of salvation, the value of

the reward and the promises that we have in Christ and think, how

could we not share something of such incredible value and worth?

Give us boldness and wisdom to become like others so that we

can share Your good news with them.

Or we know that it is only You that can save.

And so we pray that as we have conversations, that you would

work in and through our words, in and through us to save others

and bring them to Christ, that You would strengthen our faith

and give us the joy of seeing our faith in action, of seeing

You working in and through our obedience.

And may the Lamb receive all the glory, all the praise, and all

the honor. In His name we ask and pray.

Amen.