Contending for the Focused Life: Harvest - Contending For The Focused Life

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Jesus Christ is God's only provision for our sin.

Through him alone, we can know God personally and experience God's love and plan for our life.

He died in our place.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Turn in your Bibles, if you have your Bibles with you, to Mark chapter 12.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

And for the last several weeks, we've been in this idea of contending for a focused life in loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And the phrase that I give to you as a thesis of what I'm saying is that the greatest man who ever lived gave us the greatest command ever given that we might live the greatest life ever offered.

The greatest man who ever lived gave us the greatest command ever given that we might live the greatest life ever offered.

And he says, Love God, love me.

Everything in the Bible, everything in the prophets, everything that you find in the Old Testament is all summed up here.

Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And so as I shared last night on the end times prophetic forerunner of the wholehearted disciple, John the Baptist, which is what I shared last night out at Rocky Mountain Roosters, that I believe the forerunner, the forerunner of the last days disciple is John the Baptist.

And John the Baptist came with a message that there would be a time, and Jesus is the one who actually defined it, that only forceful people would be able to take on the kingdom of heaven.

And if you were there last night, you've already heard, I won't go into that.

But here's the reality.

I'm going to speak to the men here.

This is true for women too, but I'm going to speak to the men because you guys are really on my heart, because I is one, but also because I believe there's a call on all of your lives to be forceful for the things of the kingdom.

And the word actually in the New Testament Jesus uses is violent.

That the violent will take on the kingdom of heaven.

Since the days of John the Baptist till today is what Jesus was saying, and he's speaking of the last days.

The violent will take on the kingdom of heaven.

That's Matthew 11, 12.

So I talked about that last night, but here's what he's saying.

He's saying passivity is gone.

Passivity is over.

If we want to grow to be men of God and women of God, we've got to be forceful about the things of the kingdom.

Starting with yourself.

The work of holiness, and as we talked about again, I'll mention last night in reference to this, that areas of our life that we know are hindering us seeking the kingdom first, we have to become violent about.

You have to violently go after a holy life.

And so how do we do that?

That's really the question.

How do we do that?

Well, we do that not by focusing on that primarily, but focusing on Jesus Christ and the challenge that we have before us of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

So let's read the passage.

I'm going to read it to you.

If you have you can read it on the app or in your Bible.

Then one of the scribes came, this is verse 28, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, which is the first, or and Matthew says the greatest commandment of all.

Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

I already spoke on this several weeks ago.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, with all your strength.

That was last week.

This is the first commandment.

And the second is likened unto it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

There's no other commandment greater than these.

So the first and second commandment are a call upon every believer's life.

So I've got an illustration up here I want to show you.

And so last few weeks we've looked at the box, the diamond first, the idea of loving God with our heart, that's our emotions.

Loving God with our soul, that's our identity.

Loving God with our mind, that's the vision you have for your life.

And loving God with your strength, which is your energy.

And now he says that should explode out and expand out and start touching our neighbors.

And so this idea of loving our neighbors, as you notice, goes through what you see on the edges of our little diagram, self.

You already love yourself.

You're already thinking about lunch today because you love your body so much.

We in the new year, I go to Villa, I work out at Villa, and um, and I just started working out about four months ago again after years of not.

And then I go in, and it's funny now, you know, these first few weeks, how many people are in the gym.

Because they love their bodies.

And they'll all be gone in the next couple weeks, so all the machines will become available again.

But at least they're trying, you know, to start the year that way, and then they'll fade out.

But the reality is that we already love ourselves.

And what I mean by that is not that we have a great self-image.

Some of us have some issues with that, and that's another message.

But what Jesus is saying is in the same way you love yourself, love your neighbor and reach out to your neighbor.

Now, here's what I believe.

We're in the book of Revelation.

Next week we're gonna get back to the book of Revelation.

When are we gonna get back to Revelation Revelation?

Let's start next week.

Okay, Revelation chapter 9.

Revelation 9 · chapter mention

We're gonna be back in Revelation chapter 9.

Revelation 9 · chapter mention

And what we see in the book of Revelation is this ongoing discovery of the coming of the Lord, the signs of the coming of the Lord in the last days, and this great revival.

This great revival that's gonna affect the church, and this great awakening that's gonna affect our cities.

And so that's what we're contending for on Wednesday afternoons from 12 to 1.

If you haven't been, you should come.

One hour.

And Marcus and I really try to keep it.

We start at noon and we end at one because we want to honor you guys on your lunch break.

But we come and we contend, we don't waste any time there.

We come, we worship, we pray, and we ask God, and this is this is a thesis of our time together, we're asking God for revival in the churches of Colorado Springs and awakening in the city of Colorado Springs.

Now we call it revival in the Rockies, so sometimes we go out outside that, we pray for our state and stuff, but primarily our focus is God would you in our time.

In our time.

Because here's the deal.

I don't know if we're in the last days.

As the Bible describes it, I know I'm in my last days.

And some of you are more last days than others.

And you actually might be 35 years old and you're gonna have a heart attack in the next couple weeks.

So let's live it wholeheartedly.

So when we come to pray, we're saying, God, in our time and in our day, would you grant us a revival in our church and awakening in our city?

And so when we read Revelation 11, 15, we read these words on the blast of the seventh trumpet.

This is coming up in a couple weeks.

The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

So what's happening on the earth today, you can see it in so many ways on the news.

You can see it in so many ways if you uh look at different issues that are happening all over the world, whether it be the Middle East or whether it be in Asia or whether it be in the United States, that darkness is rising.

And simultaneously, light is shining.

Darkness is rising, the light is shining.

I believe that as we see more demonic activity, we're gonna see more Christ power.

As we see more demonic activity, we're gonna see more Christ power.

And I don't have time to unpack it here.

We'll probably start unpacking it next week when we get into Revelation chapter 9.

Revelation 9 · chapter mention

But we're in a Psalm 2 moment.

We're in a Psalm 2 moment, meaning that we're living in days where the nations are raging against God.

And what they're doing, what the nation's saying is don't put your bounds on me.

Don't put your boundaries on me.

Don't tell me what to do, right?

That's what Psalm 2 says.

The nations rage against God.

The Psalm 2 moment is bringing about a Joel II response.

A Joel II response is fasting and prayer and evangelism and discipleship happening around the world, which is going to result in an Acts 2 awakening and revival.

And so that phrase that I give you comes from Mike Bickel at IHOP, and I love it.

I got his book on it, The Coming Crisis, and read it during Christmas.

But it's, I love this, and I'll just uh give it to you again.

A Psalm 2 crisis results in a Joel II response, which results in a Acts 2 revival.

That's what we're living in, and that revival is coming, and I want to be a part of praying for it and believing God for it.

Those final signs of the coming, when Jesus was speaking of the coming of his second uh inaugural into uh the closing out of the age, said this the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all of the world as a witness to the nations, and then the end will come.

And so, as many of you remember, right after the election, the next morning when I woke up after the election, God had put on my heart, make Jesus great again.

Make Jesus great again.

So that's our theme in 2017 is how can we make Jesus great in Colorado Springs?

How do we begin to point people toward the greatness and the beauty and the love of Jesus Christ in our city?

And that Springs initiative that you heard about today, that so excites me.

I think we're doing three in the summer, not two.

But um, it's gonna be June, July, and August.

And we go down, we go down into some of the more needy neighborhoods.

We did it last summer.

It was so much fun, and it was so well attended that we decided to add more to it.

So we'll be doing more houses.

We paint houses.

We just paint houses and we clean up lots.

Anybody can do it.

You don't have to have any special traits or skills or anything.

If you can stand upright, if you can go like this and go like that, you can do it.

And so we had little kids.

We had some great pictures.

Uh go to you should go to our Springs Initiative um website, but you see all this whole row of little guys.

I mean, nobody's older than eight years old, and they're doing it.

Now, it was it was an interesting um, it needed a little bit of cleanup afterwards, but they did it, you know?

And it meant so much.

It meant so much to those people because we were taking the gospel outside of the four walls of the church, and it was really exciting.

So turn in your Bibles to this idea, John chapter four.

John chapter four, because I want to look at the passage we just read in our antiphonal reading about how Jesus wants us to view the last day's harvest.

The last day's harvest.

Jesus realizing probably from a lot of hanging out around the campfire with his disciples' discussions, where they're like, wait, you keep talking about this harvest, and you keep talking about these people who are interested in the gospel of the kingdom, and we like what you're doing because you like do it really cool.

You like cast out demons, you heal the sick.

Um, we're not sure if this is gonna work so well if you're not here.

I'm just wondering.

I mean, maybe that never happened, but if I was a disciple, that's what I would say.

Jesus, this is really cool when you do it.

But um, I know how to catch fish.

As long as you're on the shore telling me which side to throw the net on.

Um I think that that that whole story is to show them they weren't such great fishermen after all, and that they needed him.

And so they're asking him that question, maybe.

So they leave him in this Samaritan village.

Typical guys, they go to get food.

They go down to McDonald's to get some burgers, and Jesus is left at this well, and the Samaritan woman comes up and he reads her mail.

He reads her mail.

He has a word of knowledge about the fact that she has seven husbands.

She can't believe that he knows this, and so she calls him a prophet suddenly, and in the aftermath, she runs out into the village, tells everybody about the man who told her everything about her life, and history and tradition tells us that a great revival broke out through the Samaritan woman and some of the first churches, first Christian churches.

When I was in Israel, and I was we were at the place, um, we weren't at the well, because we don't know where that well is, but in that vicinity of that particular region, I shared that story.

Everybody's like, oh, you're kidding.

No.

First churches, first churches in the first century were established in that area because of this Samaritan woman.

That's what tradition tells us.

And so she just went nuts.

I mean, she went running around telling everybody, and all the disciples, I mean, she's out there evangelizing.

The disciples are still trying to figure out whether he wants burgers, fries, and coke.

Or, you know, he's not sure what they come back.

Well, what's this about food?

And so he responds and say, My food is to do the will of God.

But then he says this.

Look at John chapter 4, verse 35.

John 4:35

Do you not say, There's still four months, and then comes a harvest?

Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes.

Underline that, highlight that, lift up your eyes and look at the fields.

For they're already white for harvest.

And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

For in this the saying is true, one sows and another reaps.

Verse 38.

I sent you to reap.

I've got that underlined in my Bible.

I love that.

I circled that.

I sent you to reap.

That for which you have not labored.

In other words, you didn't pay the price of that person being open to Jesus and being open to the love of God.

Somebody else did, but I'm gonna let you reap the benefits.

And you've entered into their labors, and many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him.

Isn't that awesome?

Thousands did.

History tells us thousands did, and churches were planted because of this woman.

I see four things here.

I see four uh principles that are true today, right now, in our city of Colorado Springs.

Number one, God is saying, don't wait, don't keep saying it's gonna happen later.

The harvest is already here.

Okay, the harvest is already here, and he is ready to do something right now.

That's the first point.

Second point, you've got to look up and see it.

You've got to look up and see it.

It is not right in front of your face, it is not obvious.

You have to take your eyes off navel gazing and actually look up and see what God's doing in people's lives.

I challenge you, men and women, this week, and we're gonna do a little, we're gonna do something in a moment, and you'll understand what I'm saying, but I'm gonna challenge you that you would go to work this week, or you'd go shopping this week, or you would, whatever you're doing this week, start asking God, God, what are you doing right now, right here in my company, in my shopping, whatever.

Would you show me, I want to lift my eyes up and I want to see a harvest.

And when I think of a harvest church, I don't think of just leading someone who doesn't know Jesus to the Lord.

I think about the harvest of what needs to happen in their heart to experience God's love.

And sometimes that's painting a house.

And sometimes that's a word of knowledge.

I know a guy that was recently in a, I think he was a Walmart.

He was in a Walmart, and he felt like when he was in Walmart, that the Lord told him that this young man who was just with his parents over here had an artistic gift on him.

So he said to the mother, he said, This is kind of weird, but I'm just sitting here trying to get toothpaste.

But I feel like God gave me a word that your son's an artist, and that that's a gift from God, and God wants to develop that in his life.

And I mean, her jaw dropped when she began to share with him the story of his struggle in the artistic area of his life and the encouragement that was.

And then he prayed for him in Walmart that the anointing of God as an artist would come upon this young man.

That's a harvest.

And I don't know that it went any further than that.

But he he looked, he he looked up and he saw the harvest.

And there's people around us that are lonely and they're depressed and they're hurting.

And if we start asking God, what are you doing here?

You're doing something, because God's always at work.

He's always working.

The hardest working God of the universe is the one we worship, okay?

He said, Well, there's is there more than one?

Well, you know, ask a Buddhist, there are, you know, but the hardest working God of the universe is Jesus Christ, and he's at work, and all he's looking for are some vessels who will listen enough to his voice that he can say, Hey, go over here.

And I'll show you a harvest.

And it's exciting what God can do.

So that's the second thing I see in this.

Thirdly, everyone has a role to play.

Everyone has a role to play.

Some sow, some reap.

And I would say that a lot of times in our life we think we haven't done anything good.

We think that we haven't helped anybody at all, but because we love them, we helped them a ton.

It was huge.

Because we treated them with respect and honor, you're leading them to the Lord.

Because you gave a good tip after your meal when that gal was having a really hard day, you express love to her that may be the role that God wants you to play for the next person who's going to share how they can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And then fourthly, God is sending the church to reap a fantastic harvest right now.

God is sending out the church.

I'm sending out, he says, I want you to reap.

I am calling you to reap, and we can go out and reap.

That's exciting.

So it's right there before.

So here we're gonna do something really weird today.

I'll just say it.

I'll just say, that was weird what you did.

I'll say, okay, well, I told you at the beginning it was weird.

So it's gonna be weird.

How many of you, when you came in, did not get this booklet?

Raise your hand if you did not get this booklet.

Hold your hand up, hold your hand up.

I've got a team of folks that are gonna get these booklets to you.

I want everybody to pull out these booklets that you received right now.

Would everybody pull the booklets out?

It's called Would You Like to Know God Personally?

Would you like to know God?

So everybody grab the booklet and keep your hand up until you get one.

That would help us a lot.

Got a young man here in the middle.

Great, awesome.

Okay, when I was a freshman at University of Georgia, I got injured in my uh in gymnastics.

I dislocated my knee really bad, and I came hobbling out of the training room, and right in front of the training room was a gal, her name was Talula Parish.

Still remember her name, from Biloxi, Mississippi.

And Talula, and she was really cute.

She was really cute.

That's what caught my attention.

And she said, she said, are you a sportsman at the University of Georgia?

And I said, Well, yeah, I'm coming out of athletic training room, of course I am.

She goes, You look like you hurt your knee.

And I said, Would you kiss it, honey?

That would really help.

No, I didn't say that.

But um, but she began to ask me some questions, and she got my name and number.

And this guy, and I remember his name was Bob Carter.

Don't know what ever happened to Tallula, don't know what ever happened to Bob Carter.

But uh he called me and we set up an appointment, and he shared this booklet with me.

Now back then it was called the Four Spiritual Laws, slightly different, but pretty much the same.

And on a grassy knoll at the University of Georgia, this guy went through this booklet with me, and it was the first time, even as a Lutheran kid, uh, who had a dad who was a pastor, who had been baptized as an infant, confirmed at 16, been through the Ten Commandments, ad nauseum, been through Martin Luther's treatise on baptism, and Martin Luther's treatise on sanctification, uh, all the stuff that a good Lutheran kid would do.

At that time, I didn't know the contents of most of this.

And he took the time, he took 15 minutes and he shared it with me, and that was the beginning of the changing of my life in every way.

So I went back to my room, and for the next three months I read it and I reread it and I read it and I reread it and I continued to party.

And I continued to do a lot of fun stuff.

By the way, I define fun at the time, but something bugged me about this booklet.

And what bugged me, which I didn't know at the time, was it's full of scripture.

And the Bible was starting to build faith in me as I read it again and again.

Wasn't the words as much as it was the word.

It wasn't the words as much as it was the word.

And what I'm going to go through in a moment is show you these nine passages that I think are the are the most powerful nine passages.

There's others.

There's others in the Bible.

But these, I believe, are the most polignant, powerful nine passages in all of Scripture that can help us understand the basics of the Christian life.

Now here's what's going to happen this morning.

Some of you in this room have never heard the contents that are in this booklet.

And when we get done, you're going to want to receive Christ.

Because you're not going to be sure if you've received Christ.

And that's going to be really fun.

Because you're going to get led to the Lord today through this booklet the same way I did.

So I read it and I reread it, and finally there was a day that I knelt down beside my bed and I invited Jesus Christ to come into my life.

And it was it was the beginning of a great adventure.

There's nothing anointed per se about this booklet.

There's so many.

There's as many ways to share your faith as there are people on the earth who care about sharing their faith.

But I'm going to share this with you today, the way it was shared with me, and the way I've shared it with thousands of others, because I believe most people don't share their faith because they just don't know how.

Some of the most committed believers who are spirit-filled and they love the Lord, they just don't know how to begin the conversation or how to carry that conversation to completion.

And there's nothing magical here, but I think learning at least one way.

You know, if you play baseball, you learn how to hold the bat.

And then you learn how to swing the bat, and you see the ball coming and you swing the bat.

But as you become a more proficient baseball player, you start having your own style of how you hit the ball.

Same with golf.

Golf has some basics of how to swing, but then as you become good at golf, you have your own swing.

And so this is just a beginning point to guide us, but I believe a harvest is coming, and I believe a harvest is coming to this church, and I think it behooves us to at least have one way that we can share our faith with others.

So this is called the Would You Like to Know God Personally Booklet.

I just made that up.

I think that's what we'll call it.

We'll call it the Would You Like to Know God Personally booklet or the Know God Personally Booklet or whatever.

We used to call it the four spiritual laws.

But here's what I like about this booklet is that it explains to someone why they're here, what their purpose is, why Jesus came, and what his purpose was.

So here's the way I always introduce this booklet.

I say, and I'll just say this, we can, we're recording this, all of our sermons are always recorded and all that.

So you can go back and listen to it.

If you want to take notes, that's great too.

But here's what I did.

When I first learned how to share this booklet, what I did is I used to I cut the pages out.

I cut the pages out, went home, took a spiral notebook, and I pasted the page at the top, and then I wrote down how I would introduce the booklet and how I'd do each page, and I memorized that, and that became my key for learning in the early days how to share my faith.

And we go up randomly, we just go up to people, and here's the way I always believe is the best way to introduce a booklet, say, hey, and you can blame it on me.

I go to this church called The Road, new church here in town, and we're wanting to find out people's opinion about spiritual matters in our city of Colorado Springs.

Could I take 10 minutes of your time and get your opinion on some spiritual questions related to this booklet?

Would you like to know God personally?

Something like that is a great introduction.

And we used to do that, and when I was with Campus Crusade all those years, we did that thousands of times.

We did it in Japan the same way we did it in America, and 80% of the time people said, Well, yeah, because they want to give their opinion.

People always want to give.

No, don't go up and say, I want to tell you about Jesus.

I want to tell you there's an end times harvest coming, and you're gonna go to heaven or you're gonna go to hell.

And this little booklet will explain how you can go to heaven.

Are you interested?

That doesn't work very well.

Not effective.

Um, but to say, could I get your thoughts on a booklet?

Could I just take 10 minutes right now?

I would love your opinion on some spiritual matters.

Um, and if you've got the time, I'd like to share it with you.

So that's how I have always introduced it through the years.

When you open the booklet, you turn the page like that.

You turn the page like that.

Don't keep both pages open, just like this.

You say, Well, I was recently with someone and they said, Well, I don't I don't think anybody's gonna let you share that booklet with them.

And I said, Well, have you ever tried?

Well, no.

Well, why don't we try?

And I find that the people are very open if you do it in a kind way.

So there's four four aspects here, church, four things we're gonna learn.

First one is, and I just read it, and I always have my little pen.

I was telling Ryan before the service that back when I was in college, we didn't have PowerPoint and stuff like that, but I remember teachers had slides.

You ever heard of slides?

Slides?

Um, they had slides, and then they had a little pointer.

And I remember the little light would dance around and go, and he would go.

This is the chemical reaction of what we're talking about.

And when water hits the chemical, and you're sitting there going, and you know, you take your notes and everything because the guy.

And so I kind of did my own little PowerPoint presentation.

I always had my pen and I would do this.

So, first, I want your opinion on this.

God loves you and he created you to know him personally.

He has a wonderful plan for your life.

That's a pretty good start, isn't it?

It doesn't start with sin, doesn't start with rebellion, it starts with God's love.

Wonderful plan for your life.

That's what I love about the this little booklet, is it starts off so positively.

And here's what the Bible says: God's love.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God has a plan for your life.

Now, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Then I ask the question, it's right there, it's already written for you.

What prevents us?

Here's my first thing I want to get your opinion on, what prevents us from knowing God personally?

And then you listen.

And it's amazing what people say.

It is amazing what the God-shaped vacuum in people's hearts, what the scriptures say is eternity in their hearts, how people already know stuff that they shouldn't know.

Um, and they'll answer many times totally accurately to what you're asking.

So, how do what prevents people from knowing God personally?

I always agree with what they say.

That's good.

Thank you.

Well, let's look at what uh the principle number two says.

This talks about our condition.

So turn now to page four, fold it over, don't let them see the diagram yet.

Well, people are sinful and they're separated from God, so we cannot know him personally or experience his love and plan.

The Bible says people are sinful, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And always go, now what is how many is all?

Well, all, okay, good.

Here's another question I ask, and I've got it written here for description here.

How would you define sin?

That's a great question.

Now that is is you know, if people get this part, you're 90% there.

How would you define sin?

So, right now, tell me, how would you define sin?

Anybody?

Rebellion.

Rebellion?

Great answer.

What else?

Missing the mark.

Missing the mark.

Okay, all of those are the kinds of answers you'll get, and now you just read it.

Well, those are great, good point.

By the way, it's always a good point, because remember they don't know yet.

And so they say, well, you know, because of murder or because of selfishness, those are great.

People were created to have fellowship with God.

But because of our stubborn self-will, and sometimes I underline that, stubborn self-will, we chose to go our own independent way, and fellowship with God was broken.

This self-will, underline that, characterized by an attitude of active rebellion or passive indifference, is evidence of what the Bible calls sin.

Isn't that a great definition?

I think that's the that's the best definition around.

I really do.

And we could we could maybe make it more succinct, but in a in a way to share sin with someone who doesn't know, that's one of the best definitions I've ever found.

And here's my next question.

Have you ever sinned before?

Have you ever sinned before?

And 99.9% after hearing that go, well, of course, we've all sinned.

Great, that's true.

I have too.

Usually I say something like, so have I.

Just the other day, um I was in an argument with my wife about something, and I usually share something to again have empathy with them.

And then I read again people are separated, for the wages of sin is death.

And what that means is that it's a spiritual separation from God.

There's a spiritual separation from God.

Let's turn to the other, to the next page.

I want to show you this diagram.

This diagram illustrates that God is holy and people are sinful.

A great gulf separates the two.

The arrows illustrate that people are continually trying to reach God and establish a personal relationship with Him through our own efforts, such as a good life, philosophy, or even religion.

But we inevitably fail.

So then I always ask the question here: how many of the arrows are reaching God?

How many of the arrows are actually touching God, actually reaching God?

And they said, well, none of them are.

I said, no, they're not, because we're sinful and God is holy, and because of that, no matter how much effort, no matter how much of moral living we try to have in our life, we still fall short.

And I like to use this illustration, the swimming to Hawaii illustration.

You might want to write that down.

The swimming to Hawaii illustration.

If we were standing on the banks there of Southern California and we are gonna swim to Hawaii, and right next to me is an Olympic gold medal swimmer, and then there's me.

You know, and then there's a guy who won the Pan American Games, and then there's you.

And so we jump in and we start swimming.

Who's gonna get to Hawaii first?

Uh, nobody's gonna make it to Hawaii.

Not possible.

I don't care how good a shape this guy's in, I don't care how great a swimmer, he's never going to make it.

So it is.

We can't make it.

I don't care how much of a moral life you live or how ethical you are, how honest you are, you're still not gonna make it.

So how do we make it?

Oh, I don't know.

That seems like an impossible endeavor.

It is.

So let's look at number three.

Let's look at what number three says.

God's response.

Jesus Christ is God's only provision for our sin.

Through him alone, we can know God personally and experience God's loving plan for our life.

He died in our place.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Why did Christ die on the cross?

That's my next question.

Why did Christ die on the cross?

Fascinating.

I love that question.

Why did Christ die on the cross?

Again, every answer is the right answer.

Let them, you know, let the person talk, get their opinion on it.

Well, let's see what the let's see what this booklet says.

He rose from the dead.

Christ died for our sins.

And I underline that, or I circle it.

Christ died for our sins.

That's the main point.

He died because of your sin.

Because of your inability to reach God.

He died for our sins.

He was buried.

He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

He appeared to Peter and then to the twelve.

And after that, he appeared to more than 500.

I circle 500 and I asked the question here: how many eyewitnesses do you need to convict someone in a court of trial in the United States of America?

And I say, one.

Five hundred people saw Christ alive on the third day.

After he had died and been buried in a tomb, five hundred people saw him alive.

Even using modern day courtroom evidential trial techniques, 500 saw him risen from the grave.

Now I don't shout like that, like I'm preaching and stuff.

But um look at the next page because I want to show you that diagram again and how it's different.

He's the only way to God.

Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

And I asked the question, what's different about the diagram?

What do you see different?

And I say, well, there's this kind of like a bridge or this cross with Christ on it.

Okay, that's good.

What else do you see?

Where's the arrow going?

Oh, well, the arrow is actually coming from God to us, not us to God.

I say, great.

And then I read this.

This diagram illustrates that God has bridged the gulf that separates us from Him by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.

And so here we are, we're just slogging it out, swimming to Hawaii, trying to make it Hawaii, and this boat comes up and offers us a free ride to Hawaii.

Because you're about to drown.

And so all we have to do is receive that free gift, take that guy's hand, get into the boat, and that boat takes us to Hawaii.

That's what Jesus Christ did.

Jesus Christ, men and women, he came to pay the penalty for your sin and to open the way, to bridge a gap that you might have a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

But it's not enough to know this.

A lot of people know this, a lot of people in church know this, a lot of you know this.

But the fourth part is really, really key.

Our response.

We must individually receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.

Then we can know God personally and experience his love and plan.

We must receive Christ.

Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.

When we put our faith in Christ, we become children of God.

We receive Christ through faith.

For it is by grace you've been saved through faith.

And this, not from yourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works that no one can boast.

And here's my next question.

What do you think this verse is saying?

What do you think this Ephesians 2, 8, and 9?

We just read this.

What do you think it's saying?

Now, this is where it gets really interesting because people just go all over the stratosphere on this.

So here's what I do.

I circle faith, or I've underlined it here.

I underlined faith.

I said, what is faith?

And I explain, faith is trust.

Faith is putting your trust in something.

I literally, if I had a chair up here and I sat down in that chair, I wouldn't consciously think this way, but subconsciously it's true that I'm putting my faith in that chair that it won't collapse when I sit in it.

So there's all kinds of stuff we do all the time where we trust in something to be true.

And so faith in Christ is putting your trust in Him.

Then it says it's a gift of God, and I underline that or I circle that.

Well, what's a gift?

If I'm giving you this pen right now, what do you need to take it?

And he says, well, um, just take it.

That's right.

If I said to you that I want to give you this pen, but I need you to give me$10 for it, would that be a gift?

Of course not.

So a gift is something we simply receive, and then he says here, not by works.

So it's not you earning it.

And this is really, really important with those who come out of a Catholic background.

You know, you don't have to earn it.

You don't have to go to catechism class.

You don't have to take communion every Sunday.

You don't have to do anything.

You have to open your heart to Jesus Christ and receive him.

Accept the free gift.

When we receive Christ, we experience a new birth.

Now, sometimes if I have my Bible, I would read John 3, 1 through 8, but it's not necessary.

Turn over to the next page.

We receive Christ by personal invitation.

Jesus said, Here I am.

I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens that door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.

Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self, repentance, and trusting Christ to come into our lives, to forgive us of our sins and to make us what he wants us to be.

Just to agree intellectually, and that's where most believers in the church are today, they agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died on the cross for our sins, that's not enough.

Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience.

We receive Jesus Christ by faith, trusting in his work at the cross and as an act of the will.

You deciding that you're going to follow Christ.

Now we have two diagrams here.

What do you see, or what's the difference between these two circles?

Yep.

Okay, where's the cross?

The cross is different in each one.

What else?

The chair.

Who's on the chair?

Good.

Those are exactly the answers you'll get.

So then I read the left-hand column first.

These two circles represent two kinds of lies.

A life without Jesus Christ, self is on the center and on the throne, and Christ is outside their life.

The one on the right says, a life entrusted to Christ is where Christ is in the center and on the throne, and self is yielding to Christ.

And then see the question down below?

Which circle best describes your life?

And 99.9% will say the one on the left.

Well, which circle would you like to represent your clock, your life?

And about 60% will say the one on the right.

And then you go, yeah, awesome, dude.

That's hot.

That's so cool.

You win.

No, you don't do that.

You say, okay, that's great.

When I was, and that's this is where I share really briefly, when I was 18, years old in college, I made this decision.

I saw that my life was on the left hand side, and I wanted to be on the right hand side, and I gave my heart to Christ.

And this is what I did.

Let me explain that to you.

So you didn't turn it over, the next page.

Don't go into this soliloquy about how you were a drug addict and gang member and all that.

And I mean, if you were, that's great, but you don't need to go into that right now.

That's not what the point is.

The point is to stay on task with Jesus.

You can receive Christ right now, by faith, through prayer.

All that prayer is is talking with God.

God knows your heart.

He's not so concerned with your words as he is with the attitude of your heart.

And this is a prayer that I prayed, very similar to this, what I prayed when I was 18.

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally.

Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.

I open the door of my life and receive you as my Savior and Lord.

Thank you for forgiving me of my sins and giving me eternal life.

Take control of the throne of my life right now.

Make me the kind of person you want me to be.

And then here's another question asked.

What is the main thing that you see in this prayer?

What's the main point of the prayer?

Don't ask the next question, does this prayer express the desire of your heart?

Yeah.

Just say, what's the main point of the prayer?

And what would you say?

What's the main point of the prayer?

Receiving Jesus, your Lord and Savior?

Absolutely.

What else?

What?

Surrender.

Surrender.

That's a great word.

Yeah, so all those things.

Then you say, does this prayer express the desire of your heart?

Let's say they say yes.

Let me say this.

If they say no, they go, what would hinder you from making this the desire of your heart?

That's a fascinating discussion.

Many people have been hurt by the church.

Many people, even though you've been all you've been talking about is Jesus, they go, well, you know, I don't believe in creation and evolution.

You know, I'm an evolutionist.

They go, that's great.

That's fine.

But what always go away from those kind of controversial things.

Don't get into create Please don't get into creation, evolution.

Don't get into the, you know, the latest chemical theory of biophysics.

Don't get into intelligent design.

Stay on Jesus.

Does that make sense?

So if they say they don't want to receive Christ, well, look, I just want to, that's thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much for giving me your time.

I want to give you this booklet.

And maybe later you might want to receive Christ, so take it.

So always give them a booklet.

But if they say yes, then I say, Well, let me do what was what I've learned to be the best way to receive Christ.

And why don't we pray this prayer together?

I'll read the sentence and then you repeat it after me.

And then I always say, let us pray.

And again, I still got it like this.

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally.

And he says, Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally.

Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.

Thank you for dying on my cross for sins.

And then I go through that prayer with that person.

And then I turn over to this final page and I read this page.

Do you know that Christ is in your life?

Did you receive Christ into your life?

And someone said, Well, I don't I don't know, I didn't feel anything.

And I go, remember, it's by faith.

It's by trust, it's not a feeling.

It's putting your faith in him.

And according to his promise, as recorded in Revelation 3.20, where is Christ right now in relation to you?

And they go, Well, what was what was Revelation 3.20?

Where was that?

So just turn back.

Remember on page nine, right at the top, that's Revelation 3.20.

And so I read it again.

That they opened their heart to Christ.

And then here's what's important is to give them the booklet, encourage them to get involved in a church.

And a lot of times you can write your name and phone number, but see if within the next week you can get together and then uh do a follow-up.

And here's what the follow-up is, church, is just the rest of the booklet.

Just read the rest of the booklet.

It is so good.

Look at, for example, the very last page has an acrostic growth.

And that right there is where you can help someone start growing, is the G-R-O-W T-H right there.

So this is this is a very simple way to share your faith.

It certainly takes courage.

It certainly takes faith to do it.

But I'll tell you this, many women, most people out there, surveys have shown, are not Christians because they don't know how to receive Christ.

Most people are not Jesus followers, not because they hate Jesus or they hate.

Now there are hateful people out there.

They cuss and they fume and they hate believers.

There are people like that, but they're very few and far between.

Most people just don't know a believer in their life who ever took the time to share something like this with them.

And people are so open, men and women, to receiving Christ that they just had a simple explanation.

So we ordered about 350 of these.

I don't know how many we gave out today, maybe 250, but the reality is that I would challenge you this week, share this with one person.

Take this booklet, share it with one person, and we'll take time at the beginning of the service next week for you to share your story of what God did.

Because some of you are going to have the privilege of leading people to the Lord, and they may come with you to church next week because they're so excited about the relationship with God.

And then we will have more of these.

They'll be at the uh table as you come in.

Feel free to take them.

Um doesn't cost you anything.

If you if you want to give us a dime or whatever for each one, you can, but you please don't do that.

I don't want a bunch of dimes.

Um but when we run out, we run out, we'll get more.

And you are welcome to use these, um, and these are a great tool.

I know that many people use it this way with people that they personally work with, is they give them the booklet too, and say, this booklet has a life-changing message.

It's it's changed my life.

And you don't have to have been led to the Lord through this booklet because the contents of the booklet are the same way you were led to the Lord.

Read this.

I would love next week at lunch.

Could we talk about the kind?

I'd love to get your opinion on this booklet.

And then you go through it with them at that time.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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