When a Child's Soul Is Saved

Had a great uh opening session of Summer Sound Lab, and and uh by the looks of it, our music ministry doubled overnight.

But we're so excited about uh the interest in serving the Lord and our music ministry and uh new instrumentalist uh we're here as well.

And honestly, as you've kind of noticed here, we're piecemealing this together with what we have available to us, and and in time this will have to expand, and some of our audio will uh is really being stretched as well.

Uh but God will guide us into all of that, and uh, where God guides, he provides, and where he leads, he proceeds.

And we're so grateful for God's goodness to us.

Uh but I want to thank everyone for coming, and we're gonna run that all summer long, and we want here's what I told the choir.

This might be a good philosophy of life for all of us.

I I I said to our music, I I really believe that we gave our best to God this morning.

I really believe that.

But I I also believe that we will have a better best to give to God next Sunday.

And at the end of the summer, I think we'll have a better best.

And I just want to encourage us, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

Um, have you ever heard of the 1% rule?

Um, in other words, you can get 1% better every day.

I just want to encourage us, maybe in our Bible reading, um, you go home from church tonight and you say, I want to be a better Christian.

I'm gonna read through Genesis to Revelation tomorrow night.

How about 1% better tomorrow?

In our soul winning, inviting people, speaking of Christ in our prayer life.

Just take that next step and give your best to God, and I appreciate your attention to that.

So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night, of course, 6 30 to 8:30, parenting classes, Tuesday and Wednesday as well.

Men, don't forget the Beast Feast is coming up on June 19th, and that's uh our annual event.

We're looking forward to that.

We encourage you to bring meat.

This is a meatpalooza.

This is a meat feast.

This is an opportunity to uh find that fine line between a good meal and gluttony.

That's we're gonna try to find that line right there.

So we encourage the guys to bring enough food uh to enjoy and to share, and we're looking forward to that, so please have that on your calendar uh as well.

Uh notice the Tampa Bay uh raise game uh that Brother Ethan has put in the bulletin there for us.

Have more information about that.

But I think uh a good opportunity for fellowship and that would be of interest to you.

Uh, we'll give you more information about that next Sunday.

Last announcement before we get in God's Word tonight.

Um, our podcast, Cultural Connections, uh, really uh premieres or debuts every Tuesday at 5 a.m.

is when it's uh scheduled to go out.

And so uh we've had such great feedback and the Lord using that to encourage hearts.

And um so we're doing some parenting uh episodes over the next couple weeks.

We have another group coming in on Tuesday night to uh share an interesting way to share the gospel, and uh they'll come in.

But I appreciate our staff and helping me uh with that, volunteer staff, of course, but helping me lead in that ministry.

And we just, you know what we want to do?

We want to say to people, um, we we don't believe in us four no more.

Uh we believe there's always room for more because the Great Commission is our commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel, and we're trying to find creative ways to do that.

And uh so this is Gospel Week here at Calvary.

Let's bathe it in prayer.

I'm gonna preach a short message tonight, don't say amen.

I'm gonna preach a long message tonight, and you'll have to deal with it, okay.

Uh we're gonna take some time to pray, and then uh some of our Bible school staff needs time to do some rehearsal for some skits, and uh Brother Ethan has a meeting uh with our workers as well, so just a short message, and so let's pray, and then we'll go into God's Word this evening.

Father, thank you for the privilege of being a Christian.

You've reminded us so many times today.

The joy, the pleasure it is to be a child of God.

Thank you for allowing us to serve you.

What better thing could we do to give our life to than the cause of Jesus Christ?

Thank you for allowing us to lift up your name, to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, to preach the gospel, and to hearken others to repent.

Bless us this week, Lord.

Do a great work here on property.

And Lord, we've worked and prayed and given and challenged so many, Lord, to their best.

Help us to Lord to give our best to you.

And we pray this prayer in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's take God's word to the book of Jonah and chapter four.

The book of Jonah, chapter four.

I should call it the gospel of Jonah.

When they asked Jesus for a sign, he said, I'll give you the sign of Jonah.

As Jonah was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, so shall the three days and three nights in the whale's belly.

Even so must the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Jonah indeed had a resurrection event occur in chapter number two.

The Lord had called Jonah to preach.

He had called him to preach to their political enemies.

It would be quasi-similar to God calling one of you to go immediately to Tehran and to preach the gospel.

And you don't want to because they are your political enemies, and they are persecuting your people, killing your prophets, persecuting your people.

Eventually, Jonah's preaching this warning message.

Nahum comes by years later.

Nineveh falls.

But a revival takes place here in this city through the preaching of Jonah.

And may I say it's the preaching, not Jonah, that changes the city.

Think about this powerfully, impactful, well-articulated expositional masterpiece of homilytic genius.

Yet 40 days the Nineveh shall be destroyed.

That's quite a sermon, isn't it?

But it's not about the preaching of Jonah.

It's the message of God through a human instrument that changes the city.

He spewed out upon the seashore.

He runs towards Nineveh, preaching from one suburb to the other side.

And the king and all the people repent in sackcloth and ashes, crying out to Jehovah God for deliverance and salvation, and God saves the city.

Now, as we discover revivals are not multi-generational, the city eventually does fall.

But it doesn't fall yet.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to say we don't know how long God would sustain America?

But we'd sure love to see God do a revival in our generation.

And that's what God does.

He uses the preaching of Jonah to stir up something that had been in their minds economically and militarily and militaristically.

There were things happening that gave them the ability to believe this message.

They knew that there was something impending.

And when Jonah came preaching this gospel of Yahweh, they repented and believed.

And you would think, you would think that Jonah would be celebrating.

He would be happy.

He would be joyful that God had proven his saving grace, his sovereign power.

But he's not happy.

He is moping as a petulant child who did not get his way.

God got his way, and Jonah didn't have his.

And he in chapter 4 sits under a vine and prays that he will die.

He prays the people will die.

He doesn't want to go back home and be known as the preacher that God used to save their political enemies.

And God begins to have a conversation with Jonah as God, if your friends don't attend your pity party, there's one person who will.

And he'll tell you the truth.

God said to Jonah, chapter 4, verse 9, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?

Jonah 4:9

And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madeest it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night.

Should not I spare Nineveh that great city?

Wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?

And also too much cattle.

Jonah is concerned for the temporal.

God is focused on the eternal.

The gourd, the creature comfort, the temporal.

Due to the impending nature of having an episode debut every week, we finally caught up with our reserve, and we have a group coming in Tuesday to record, but we had nothing for Tuesday, and so we had to record this afternoon.

And the air in the podcast room is broken.

Eighty degrees, guys.

Please pray for me.

Eighty degrees.

Terry was here all afternoon trying to fix the problem.

And he was unsuccessful.

Appreciate your help.

Temporal.

Now the message that went out was eternal.

The condition in which it might be recorded temporal.

Can I just ask you a question?

How many temporal things get in your way of doing the eternal?

Don't ever sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.

I'm just going to tell you the temporal is probably going to happen this week.

And we have a decision to make in that moment, if at all possible.

We believe that we are to give our lives for things that are eternal.

But I want to focus on verse 11 for just a few moments.

God says to Jonah, Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city?

I call this flannel graph theology.

Did you guys have flannel graph in children's Sunday school?

I love flannel graphs.

How many of you like flannel graphs?

I love flannel graph's story.

I remember watching my teacher teach about the five loaves and two fish.

And a beautiful mountain scape.

And Jesus and twelve disciples and a little basket that had five hush puppies and two sardines in it.

And she started putting people on the flannel graph.

She had like 15 people that represented 20,000 flannel graph theology.

That great city.

I think so many times when we read about Nineveh, we think of a flannel graph.

Hundred people, two hundred people, five hundred people.

And God said, Should not I spare that great city wherein are more than one hundred and twenty thousand children who cannot discern between the right hand and the left.

Calvary, can we imagine a city of 120,000 children who are under the impending judgment of God?

Does Jonah care about the children?

No.

Jonah doesn't care about the children.

Matter of fact, this is one of my favorite book endings in the Bible.

There's a couple book endings in Scripture that are pretty interesting.

This is one of them.

Should not I spare that great city wherein are more than 120,000 children who cannot discern between their right hand and their left.

Can we read that last expression in verse 11 together?

Ready?

And also much cattle.

Whoa.

For the Kaiser used to say, God cared more for the cattle than Jonah cared for the kids.

I want to give you three thoughts tonight about reaching children with the gospel.

What happens when we reach young people?

Number one, these are simple thoughts.

Number one, we save a soul.

We save a soul.

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life.

He became a living soul.

The outward man will perish.

The earth vehicle will someday be buried, but the soul lives forever.

And so what we're saying is when we lead a child to Christ, we rescue that which is eternal.

It's guaranteed of eternal life.

For many years I thought about being saved, and I thought only of eternity.

Heaven or hell.

That's what I thought.

My soul was saved.

I was secure.

I had a ticket to heaven, and that's true.

But Paul says, and you'll like this verse bodily exercise profiteth little.

But godliness is profitable in all things.

Listen to this.

Having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Now I know by and by we're going to enjoy the presence of God for all of eternity.

That's what salvation means.

How many of you are excited about eternal life?

But we have a guarantee in Christ of the life that now is.

In other words, we don't just have the by and by, we have the here and now.

Not just the glory world, but the real world.

We have Christ not just forever.

We have Christ now.

And eternal life is that we shall live forever with Christ in eternity future, as God has existed into eternity past because I live.

He said he shall live also.

We have eternal life, but we also have the life that now is.

And I want you to think about this.

When you lead a child to Christ, think about a young boy who walks the aisle at Calvary Baptist Church as someone's future husband.

That little boy's going to grow up and he's going to have a little boy going to call him daddy.

He's going to work for someone.

He's going to go to church somewhere.

He's going to be a part of our community.

My point is this: when we lead a soul to Christ, we impact a soul in the life that now is.

And can I ask you a question?

Don't you want people not just to have the assurance of eternal life?

Don't you want them to have the promise of the life that now is?

Can I ask you another question?

I mean, yeah, I know life has struggles.

I get that.

But hasn't God been good to you in the life that now is?

All of this in heaven too?

When Marie started her studies in counseling, we thought we knew the community we lived in.

We thought we understood its joys and its challenges.

Then we began to talk to people in the life that now is.

We discovered that beautiful little beach town had a lot of hell in it.

Torment in it.

Pain in it.

And I'd reach a soul for Christ, not just to give them that assurance of eternal life, but to help them in the life that now is to save a soul.

They'll have a perfect home, but I'd sure like them to have a marriage like mine.

I don't have perfect kids, but I'd like them to enjoy some of the pleasures that we enjoy together.

And we don't have a perfect church, but I sure would like them to enjoy the blessings of being a part of a wonderful, loving church family.

That's what it means to save a soul from destruction.

Number two, when we reach a child with the gospel, we have the potential, that's my word, potential to change a family for the sake of the gospel.

And I want to encourage us and I want to challenge us this year with this thought that each child that comes is not just a number on a sign or a face in a crowd, but representative of a whole family system that needs Jesus Christ.

Isn't it wonderful to reach a child for Christ?

Yes, but you know what that child inevitably needs?

They need for their mom and dad to also hear the gospel and to be given an opportunity to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I do not say that reaching a child for Christ changes the family.

I'm saying it provides the potential to change the family for Christ.

And this is where this is where we as a church body come into play here.

When you see a child come in, I want you to pray.

And I want you to look at them and I want you to say, Lord, I don't know what their family system is, but somehow, somehow, use our church to reach their parents, their grandparents, their caretakers.

I want you to help us reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Number three, it gives us an opportunity to minister to the least of these.

It's amazing these silly disputes the disciples found themselves in.

Jesus had no sinner telling, had no sinner told the disciples that he was going to go to a cross and suffer for their sin than they started having a conversation about who was the greatest among them.

How silly is that.

And to illustrate the greatest, Jesus didn't bring up Peter to the crowd.

He didn't bring up John.

No, he brought a child.

This is the greatest of these.

Years ago, uh Pastor Sexton was walking down a hallway.

There was a man on staff, his name was Lol.

That's a good Tennessee name.

You don't even know how to spell it, but Lol.

Brother Rick really helped me on Wednesday.

I uh had a Bible study on the wondering from God.

Wandering.

W-A, wondering.

I didn't say in the notes, W-A, wondering.

I spelled it W-O-Wandering.

I've been bothered by that since Wednesday.

Ron, you're here.

I was talking to I was talking to Joy Scheffler after the service about it, and he said, Pastor, just walk away.

Just walk away.

Just let it go.

And then someone later said, Pastor, I don't know if you're saying Mill M-E-A-A-L or Mill M-I-L-L.

Feel F-E-E-L or Phil L F I L L.

I'm from Tennessee, pray for me.

You're just lucky I can read and write.

Lol.

Lol, where are you going?

Well, I'm going to the nursery again, Pastor.

What are you doing?

Oh, I have to paint over something.

You you what?

Uh there's just some crayon on the wall.

I just have to have to fix that.

That's three weeks in a row you've had to do that.

Oh, Pastor, it's no big deal.

No, it is a big deal.

Who keeps doing that?

Well, it doesn't matter, Pastor.

No, I want to know.

Who keeps coloring on the wall?

Pastor, it doesn't matter.

I want to know who's been coloring on the wall.

Well, Pastor, it was your grandkids.

Well.

Well, he said, kids will be kids.

Hey, kids will be kids.

Can I just say kids don't improve the bottom line?

Don't look at them that way.

Look at them as an investment in eternity and a soul that Christ loves and died for.

We have an opportunity this week.

And may the Lord help us to preach the gospel, to love and encourage.

I was talking to our workers a few days ago, and there's something that God put in my heart years ago.

First church I pastored, there was some ladies in food service that didn't really like kids very much.

We obviously didn't know that when they signed up to work, but they got put in food service.

And we had popcorn and brownies that night.

We were running a bus into the projects and bringing in very impoverished kids.

And we just knew that when they came on property, they hadn't probably had dinner that day, or maybe much of a meal that day at all.

And so one of the kids didn't want popcorn.

He wanted another brownie.

And the lady yelled at him, You'll get what you get, you won't throw a fit.

That's not good.

You know what that boy probably came from from the trailer park?

He probably left somewhere that talked to him just like that when he left home.

I'm not saying give him every brownie in the bucket, but I'm saying let's be perceptive to say that little boy is watching how I speak to him and what I say to him.

And if he sees Jesus anywhere in Englewood this week, I want him to see Jesus in my eyes.

I want him to hear Jesus in my tone of voice.

I may be the only Jesus he sees.

That little girl that's not dressed quite right.

Let's speak to her with the love of Christ.

Let's clothe her with so much love and compassion.

She says to herself, if I'm not loved anywhere, I know I'm loved at Calvary.

We served at the East Sly Avenue Baptist Church in Tampa for one year.

And we started running, I've told you the story.

That was a non-racial church in a blended community that had a reputation for being extremely racist.

And they were.

They were.

That church no longer exists.

It exists as another church today, praise God for Brother Chris, as he serves there.

And I would say to you this, just as a side note, I haven't lived there for over 20 years.

Do you know Chris Ferguson still has to deal with the stigma that was created two decades ago?

That's amazing, isn't it?

Over 20 years later, he's still fighting perceptions made by people who didn't care for the least of these.

We started running a bust in that community.

And I know this is a shocking revelation.

We started reaching the people that lived in that community.

They had different pigment in their skin.

They didn't look like us.

We started looking like heaven.

We love those kids.

God had led us away.

I remember the last day we were dropping the kids off, had to take another worker with me.

I think Murdy was watching Phoebe, who was a baby at the time.

Their dad was in prison.

Big old tears in her eyes.

She said, tell mama I love her.

I said, what?

She said, Marie, tell Mama I love her.

Hey, listen, that's the power of a local church.

To be the arms, the feet, the heart, the love of Jesus Christ.

Should not I spare Inglewood, that great city.

When I first came here, people told me kids don't live here.

I run into kids all the time.

I had a little cookie jar in my office, and I found a kid in my office one time eating cookies out of my office.

I know there's kids that live here.

Praise God.

I appreciate your heart and your love.

I appreciate the effort that's gone into this week.

And it's worthwhile and it's meaningful.

And let's do our best for the Lord Jesus Christ.

As we enlarge heaven and poke some holes in the darkness.

We're going to pray as we conclude tonight.

I hope you'll find someone.

If you find someone close to you to pray together, make sure no one's praying alone.

And uh it might take you some moving around just a bit, but let's just find prayer pockets.

We can have three or four or five in a group if we need to do it that way.

Hey, let's let's pray that God will work in this place.

Especially if you're sitting in these center sections.

We'll probably use these center sections for seating this week.

There's going to be a child maybe sitting where you are.

There's going to be a worker sitting where you are.

Let's pray for our workers.

Let's pray for each child that comes.

Let's pray for the preaching, for everything that is said and done.

We have parenting classes Tuesday night, Wednesday night.

Let's ask God to touch those in a special way.

And uh let's make it a meaningful week that affects eternity with the gospel.

So just take a few moments and pray.

One of you start praying, the other follow up in prayer.

I'll come back in just a moment and conclude us in prayer, and we'll have our meetings.

But let's pray and ask God's blessing for us this week.