The Gospel to All Creation - Preaching the Gospel to The Lost

Welcome to the roots where it's all about Jesus. We

love God, we love people. We reach the loss and

we make disciples, and we want to help you grow

in your knowledge and love of Jesus. That's what it

means to be a disciple. That's what we're doing here.

So grab your bibles because you're gonna need it. We're

gonna be inn Acts chapter seventeen today. If you need

a Bible, we actually have some of the back of

the room and Gabe is standing there beautifully holding them.

So if you actually need a Bible, don't have one,

or need to keep one or borrow it, make sure

you get his eyes and he'll walk it out to you.

We want you to have God's word in your hands

at all times. It's our spiritual food. We need it. Well.

We're gonna be finishing our short series today titled the

Gospel to All Creation. It's the last message in the series.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus tells the disciples to

go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to

the whole creation. To go out tell everyone everywhere the

Gospel or the good News of Jesus Christ. So that's

what disciples of Jesus do so the disciples are supposed

to do. And we talked about that there aren't two

classes of disciples who follow Jesus, a class of people

who live their whole lives for him, and then another

class who only kind of do. No, there isn't two,

there's only one type of disciple. The call to discipleship

is the same for everybody who follows Jesus. Everyone who

claims to be a disciple of Jesus is a slave

to him, is what the Bible tells us. And we're

called to openly confess his name before others. So that's

our aim with this whole series, in preaching the Gospel

to all creation. It's for us all to be equipped

to go and to proclaim it everywhere we go to

all creation. And the series it started with just talking

about what is the gospel? What even is it? And

it's that you've sinned against God and our deserving of death.

That's the beginning of the gospel. But for all those

who put faith in Jesus, his death paid the debt

that we owe to God and we get eternal life.

That's kind of a sweet deal that we get eternal life,

even though our life was wrought with sin because of

the death of Jesus. So the call is to repent

of your sin and believe in Jesus. It's a very

simple message. It's infinitely beautiful and eternally or endlessly deep,

but it is simple. This is a simple message. Next,

after talking about the Gospel message, we talk about preaching

the Gospel to ourselves. That's how it starts. First is

preaching it to ourselves. The Gospel message is for us

every single day of our life. Doesn't only get us saved, No,

it's what sustains us. It's the motivation that drives everything

we do and who we are. It's also the truth

that we cling to when times get hard. And I

love what Pastor Duncan said, we need the Gospel every

day to make it all the way, like we need

the Gospel every day to make it all the way.

And then last week we talk about preaching the Gospel

to Christians or quote unquote Christians are those who think

they're saved or think they know the truth. And what

we talked about was the five what I think are

five of the most common false Christian beliefs that we

see today. And then we look at God's word and said, well,

what does he say? If this is the belief I'm

seeing in the world today, what does God say in

response to that? But the main idea of last week

was that only the true Gospel of Jesus Christ can save.

Only the true Gospel of Jesus Christ can save. There

is no other gospel. There is one gospel. There is

no other name by which mankind must be saved. And

this is going to be really important for us to

remember as we go through today's message, because today what

we're talking about is preaching the Gospel to the lost,

preaching the Gospel to the loss. This series has started

with the centrality of just what the gospel is, and

then we go out one circle to preaching the gospel

to ourselves. Then we go to preaching the gospel to

those who think they know. Now we're preaching the Gospel

to the lost, those who have no idea. I want

to start by reading our anchor text for today, and

then we'll pray and then we'll get into it. Sound

like a plan, sweet, Okay. So we're in Acts chapter seventeen,

and we're going to start in verse twenty two. So

Paul standing in the midst of the ergophagus, said men

of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are

very religious. For as I passed along and observed the

objects of your worship, I found also an altar with

this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship

is unknown. This I proclaim to you. The God who

made the world and everything in it, being Lord of

heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,

nor is he served by human hands, as though he

needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life

and breath and everything, and he made from one man

every nation of mankind to live on all the face

of the earth, having determined allotted periods in the boundaries

of their dwelling place, that they seek God and perhaps

feel their way toward him and find him. Yet He

is actually not far from each one of us, for

in Him we live and move and have our being,

as even some of your own poets have said, for

we are indeed His offspring being. Then God's offspring. We

ought not to think that the Divine Being is like

gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the

art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance, God overlooked.

But now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because

he is fixed a day on which he will judge

the world in righteousness by a man whom he is appointed.

And of this he has given assurance to all by

raising him from the dead. Let's pray, God, we thank

you for your word. We thank you for the message

you have for us. Today. God, let us pull it

into our hearts and hold it close to us, Hold

it dear to us, and let you do the work

on our hearts that needs to be done today. God,

we submit ourselves to you. We give this time to you.

Let any of the words that I say that are

of me fall on deaf ears, but only let the

words that are of you be heard today. Got We

thank you for your word. Thank you that you've given

it to us. Thank you that you've given us the

freedom to be able to read it, study it, and

apply it to our lives. Thank you for all this

in Jesus name. Amen. So we go to have gone

to Guatemala several times on missions trips, and I remember

walking through one particular year. We stay in a city

called Antigua, which is kind of a touristy place where

we there's hotels and stuff, and we'll stay in that

city and then we'll drive our way out to an

orphanage where we do most of the work, or the

villages around the orphanage. But I remember one year when

we were in Antigua, getting to walk around. We got

to go and walk into the cathedral that's there in

the town, which was pretty cool. And as I walked

through there, I saw these beautiful Well, first off, the

building itself is beautiful, but you go inside and look

at how amazing it looks on the inside. And then

you see these statues of stone and wood that are like,

I don't know how these things are carved out of statue,

out of stone and wood, and how they look so

beautiful and good. So you get to walk around these

and see these statues and they're all have different Catholic saints. Now,

even though I'm walking through this seeing all this amazing

beautiful stuff around there, there was one thing that I

saw that just wasn't beautiful, that I didn't think was beautiful,

and it was the fact that there were people bowing

before these statues, bowing before these images of past saints,

bowing and praying to them. Now as Protestants, we know

that there's only one that we bow to. Right, we

know there's only one we bow to, we bow to,

we pray to. We worship God. That's it God alone.

Now also except Jesus as the right answer too, because

Jesus is God, just to clarify that. But that's the

only one. We only worship God, that's the only one

we bow to. Now we're talking about preaching the Gospel

to the life today. But I bet if you walked

up to any lost person who wasn't a Christian, wasn't

a believer, and you ask them who it is or

what it is that they worship, they'd probably look at

you with a puzzled look and be like, well, nothing,

no one. They'd be confused by the question, there's nothing,

I don't worship anything. But what does it actually mean

to worship? I think it's helpful to look at the

definition of worship, and the definition of the word worship

is the act of showing profound honor, reverence, and adoration

toward a deity or sacred object. That's just you look

in the dictionary, that's the definition you're going to get.

But if you look at the Hebrew and Greek words

that are used in the Bible for the word worship.

It actually adds a little bit more to this definition.

The words mean to bow down before and to serve,

to bow down before and to serve. That's part of

what it means to worship. And even if in the

first two of the Ten Commandments, if you look at it,

look at Exodus chapter twenty, verses three through six. You

want to turn there, I'll be on the screen. You

shall have no other gods before me. You shall not

make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of

anything that is in heaven above, or that is in

the earth beneath, or that is in the water underneath

the earth. You shall not bow down to or serve them.

This is that word of worship for either Lord your God.

I'm a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers

on the children to the third and fourth generation of

those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands

of those who love me and keep my commandments. So

God says not to have any gods before him? None,

Why else love? The Isaiah Texas says, beside me, there

is I know not even of a god He's like,

I don't even know that they exist, because they don't.

But not only are we to not have any gods

but Him, we're not to bow down and serve anything

that's been created, anything in all of creation, and that

would include statues in cathedrals in Guatemala, statues of created

men who have long since died. God has given the

commandment and the command not to worship anything other than Him.

So if we look at this definition of worship to

show profound honor, reverence, and adoration, to bow down to

to serve, then the fact of the matter is that

every single person is actually worshiping something. Everyone is worshiping something.

There is something that they're bowing down to, something that

they are serving or trying to appease and keep happy,

or something that they're ordering their life around or obeying.

It might be their spouse, might be their kids, might

be their job or hobbies, or most likely themselves, because

most likely they're bowing down to serving and worshiping themselves.

But why why does humanity have such a drive to

worship something? Like? What is this in us that we

just need to worship something? Why is it that pretty

much every culture on the planet has some form of

religious practice. Why are there remote tribes out in the

jungles doing rain dances. Why do ancient cultures sacrifice humans

and then altars built on the top of huge structures

throughout all of history. It's because God created us this way.

He created us for worship. And what I really want

us to see today is that everyone worships something, but

to God alone belongs all worship. That everyone worships something,

but to God alone belongs all worship. Do we have

that on the screen? I think there's a slide for that.

You should write that down if you're taking notes. And

this is the fundamental problem of all of us when

we're lost. This is also the fundamental problem that we

will struggle with still as a believer, is turning our

worship to something else. The worship that belongs to God

we give to something or someone else. We reject God

as our Lord and our king, we rebel against his

rule and act as though who's God us? And we'll

get more into this idea, this rebel idea in a

little bit, But the first thing we need to understand

when preaching the Gospel to the lost is that they

are in fact worshiping something. Even if they claim to

be an atheist, they're actually very devoutly religious because their

whole life is revolving around something. Their whole life is

ordered into serving a god. It's just a false god.

It's not the God who created all things, and it's

not to the God to whom all worship belongs. So

let's look back at our text and acts, and I

want to look how Paul begins to speak to these

people in Athens back in verse twenty two. So Paul

standing in the midst of the aerogopagus. Yes, I had

to look up how to say that. I'm glad they

took out the pronunciation that I have in my notes

so I would remember how to say it. But he said,

men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you

are very religious. For as I pass along and observe

the objects of your worship, I found also an altar

with this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you

worship is unknown? This I proclaim to you. Now again,

the people Paul is speaking to are very very religious.

They're actually bowing down to objects of worship. And although

you might not see someone physically bowing down to an object,

now today that's not as common of the thing here

in America anyway. Life is actually bowing down before something.

Their decisions, their desires, their priorities, their calendars, their to

do list are bowing to something or someone. Their life

is ordered around appeasing something or someone. But Paul points

out here this one altar that they have to the

unknown God. And Paul says, I know this God, let

me tell you about him. But what Paul's doing is

he's meeting the people where they're at. That's what he's doing.

He's speaking to them in a way that they can

connect with. And I think that's something that will be

helpful for us to consider when we're speaking to lost people,

when we're preaching the Gospel to the lost. Paul himself

said he became all things to all people that he

might save some. So he's speaking in a language they

can understand. And I think that's helpful for us to consider.

And I don't think that means we go around, as

you know, between thirty and fifty year olds using jen

alpha slang, teaching the Skiddy six seven Gospel or something

whatever that could be. I'm sure there's a junior high

ministry out there. Preaching that very message right now. But

we should consider who our audiences, who are we talking to,

Who are we trying to reach with this gospel message.

But Paul says, let me tell you, guys about this

God who is unknown to you Verse twenty four. The

God who made the world and everything in it, being

lord of heaven and earth. That's who this unknown God is.

That's who this unknown God that you're worshiping is. He

does not live in temples made by man, nor is

he served by human hands as though he needed anything,

since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath

in everything, and he made from one man every nation

of mankind to live on the face of the earth,

having determined a lot of periods the boundaries of their

dwelling place. This God is unlike any of the other

false gods you guys are worshiping. He's different, He's distinct.

He's above them all. This God created everything, all the

things that have been created, that's what's been created by

this God. He isn't a created being. He doesn't live

in temples made by man. He hasn't served as though

he needed anything. He doesn't need anything. He's fully self sufficient.

Now it's quite the opposite. Everyone else needs him. He's

the one who gives mankind life and breath and everything.

Not only that, but these verses hear say that everyone

you see on earth to day, he orchestrated all that

to come from Adam. God orchestrated all of that. That's

who this God is. But what's Paul by saying is

what's Paul doing? He's actually going back to creation. This

is the very beginning of the Gospel. I think it's

hard to build a house at last if it isn't

built on the right foundation or a strong foundation. If

you build a house on sand, what's going to happen?

It's going to fall. And if you go to the

end of the Sermon on the Mount, how great was

its destruction complete? So Paul's helping build a strong foundation here.

For what he's actually talking about, he's gone back to

the beginning of creation, because that's kind of where the

Gospel actually begins. Because there is a God, and he exists,

and he created a standard for mankind. He created everything created,

and set a standard for his creation. But this is

where sin comes into play, because no one follows God's

standard for creation. But let's look. Let's keep reading what

Paul's message here to see what God's intention for mankind

actually is. In verse twenty six, and he made from

this is kind of backtracking, and he made from one man.

Every nation of mankind to live on the face of

the earth have determined allotted periods in the boundaries of

their dwelling place that they should God and perhaps feel

their way toward him and find him. Yet he's actually

not far from each one of us. So Paul speaking

a very profound truth in saying this here. That's a

very profound truth. Every human being made in the image

of God knows that He exists. A really big nerdy

word presupposition. There's a presupposed idea that they already know

God exists. They know He exists, and they should seek him,

even if it's like a blind man trying to find

his way through the dark, grabbing it at anything that

might make sense of everything, looking for God, looking for

something to worship. But everyone deep down knows that God exists.

Look at Romans chapter one. This one was a good

eye opening verse Romans chapter one, Verse eighteen. I'll let

you guys turn there, save your spot now, because We'll

be back Romans one eighteen. For the wrath of God

is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,

who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what could

be known about God is plain to them, because God

has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely,

his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived

ever since the creation of the world in the things

that have been made. So they are without what these

unrighteous men are without excuse. God's existence is plainly seen

and clearly perceived in all of creation. God showed himself.

But they take the truth of God's existence and they

suppress it by their unrighterighteousness. And Arcy Sproll puts it

this way. It says God reveals himself plainly through nature outwardly,

but he also reveals himself in the soul of every

creature that bears his image. So we are all without excuse.

We know that God exists, but as a lost person

we have suppressed the truth by our unrighteousness. We were

made to seek God. And the beautiful reality that Paul's

kind of making clear here is God is not far

away back in Acts seventeen, verse twenty eight. For in

Him we live and move and have our being, As

some of your own poets have said, for we indeed

we are indeed His offspring being. Then God's offspring. We

ought not to think that the Divine Being is like

gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the

heart and imagination of man. So again, here Paul is

he's appealing to something familiar to the people. He's trying

to connect with them, their own poets, trying to speak

into their in their language, to help them understand the

truth that he's getting at, that we're all made in

the image of God, we are his offspring. And how

can offspring come from gold or silver or stone? How

can offspring come from something that's birthed out of the

imagination of man. None of the objects of worship that

they've created are alive, none of them. None of the

objects of worship that they are bowing to and praying

to and serving are alive. So how could any of

them have offspring? It's kind of like a no duh,

Like regular he's trying to appeal to logic here, which

a lot of times when you do talk to someone

who is lost they might be following something that does

not sound logic. The point is, though things that aren't

alive don't have babies. It's as simple as that they

aren't offspring of the objects of the worship that they've made.

It's not from them that they have their life. That

they are alive, says in Job twelve. In his God's

hand is the life of every living thing and the

breath of all mankind. The life and breath of every

living thing doesn't come from gold, doesn't come from silver

or the most immaculate stone carving you've ever seen. Life

does not come from those. God is ever present in

his creation. And I don't mean that in the pantheistic sense.

Pantheism the belief that God and the universe are one,

that there's no distinction between God and creation. That God

is creation. Now there is a distinction. God created his creation,

he is outside of it and sovereign over all of it.

So I don't mean he's ever present in his creation

in that sense. But he is not far away. He's

intimately an involved in every aspect of creation. He's intimately

involved in every aspect of your life. And the author

of Hebrews puts it this way. In Hebrews one three,

he Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God

and the exact imprint of His nature. And he upholds

the universe by the power excuse me, by the word

of his power. The entire universe is upheld by the

power of Jesus word. All things that were created were

created through him. Not anything that was created that has

been created, was created outside of him. You can't get

much more involved in creation than that, you really can't.

And it's in Him that we live and move and

have our being. So after laying out these fundamental but

very important truths, Paul moves on to the call or

the command of the Gospel. So back in our Acts text,

verse thirty, the times of ignorance God overlooked. But now

he commands all people everywhere to repent because He is

fixed a day on which he will judge the world

in righteousness by a man whom he is appointed. And

of this he has given assurance to all by raising

him from the dead. So I want to just put

all this kind of together, so it makes sense. Paul

starts this by talking to the men of Athens, saying,

I know you're religious, I see all your objects of worship.

Let me tell you about this unknown God that you're worshiping.

This is the God of all gods, the self sufficient

creator of all things. We are his offspring, and it's

in him that we live and move and exist. And

that God has called everyone everywhere to repent. He's been

patient with you while you worship these false idols, in

these false gods. But now he's calling you to turn

from your sin. That's what it means to repent, to

turn away from, to turn away from the sin of

giving the worship that rightly and solely belongs to him

to something else. Because judgment is coming. The day has

been fixed, it has been set, and only he knows

what it is. When the righteous judge will do exactly that.

He will judge righteously, which means he will cast his

judgment and he will do it in a way that

is right and is correct and it is just. And

do you know how we will know who this righteous

judge is and how we have assurance that all this

will happen. God raised them from the dead. It's Jesus.

There's only one that that's happened for, and it's Jesus.

The resurrection is our proof that everything God said will

happen is going to happen. And it's our proof that

all the promises that He has given us who put

faith in Jesus Christ, they're a guarantee. I mean, just

look at how Paul talks about the resurrection to the

church in corinth This is one Corinthians fifteen. Now, if

Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can

some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead.

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then

not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has

not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and

your faith is in vain. That means pointless and useless.

We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we

testify about God that he raised Christ, whom he did

not raise. If it's true that the dead are not raised,

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ

has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised,

your faith is futile. And you were still in your sins.

And those also who are falling asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope only in this life,

we are of all people most to be pitied. Man

the resurrection is kind of a big deal. It really is.

Everything is in vain and futile. If Jesus didn't raise,

this is all everything we're doing here is worthless if

Jesus didn't raise from the dead. And we are, of

all people most to be pitied, But praise God because

Jesus did raise from the dead. The resurrection is our proof.

It is the guarantee that we've been given the Holy Spirit,

the seal of the guarantee, sealing us for the Lord

when he comes back. But what does all this have

to do with preaching the Gospel to the lost? I

thought that was what we were talking about today. This

is exactly what Paul is doing in Athens. He's actually

preaching bringing the good News, the Gospel to lost people,

the gentiles who hadn't been taught the truth of who

the true God of the universe was. So what does

he do? He tells them who the true God is.

He calls them to repent of their worshiping of other

things and to look to the one God is appointed

as righteous judge, the one he raised from the dead, Jesus.

So I think that's what we should do. I think

that's what we should do, and I put it in

a nice little three step package. I like to put

it this way, preaching the Gospel to the lost. You

have the slide for that. Thank you, Trevor. Can you

put all three of them up there, actually, beautiful. Step

one is tell them who the true God is. Step

two has helped them see their rebellion, and step three

is give them the solution. Tell them who the true

God is, help them see their rebellion, and give them

the solution. So the first step is a tell who

the true God of the universe is. That's what Paul did.

Start with creation. In the beginning, God created everything. There

is one God. All other gods are false. All other

gods are fake. They're created by the hands or the

imaginations or the art of men. They stand lifeless, incapable

of doing anything. In fact, they have to be helped

to do things by human hands. The true God needs nothing,

and it's through Him that everything was created, exists and

continues to exist. And remember that deep down everyone knows

God exists, but that God set a standard for humanity

to follow, and the most important part of that standard

is that all worship belongs to Him alone. All worship

belongs to him alone. The true God of the universe

created you to worship him, to order your life around him,

to obey him, to serve him, to bow down to him.

So tell the lost person who the true God of

the universe is. Once you've done that, the second step is,

let's help them see their rebellion. Because if God demands

all worship goes to him, then we have a problem

because we don't do that perfectly. We have all rebelled

against God and his standard, and we've directed our worship

to someone or something else. And if the consequences for

rebelling against God are to end up in hell, where

this weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the fire never

goes out and the worm does not die, to be

fully separated from the grace of God, only to experience

his wrath on your sin, to in the end be

thrown in the lake of fire with Satan and his demons,

and all of this. It's free eternity like it never

ever ends, constant and conscious eternal torment. If that's the

consequences for rebelling against God, then we desperately need to

help the lost person see their own rebellion, Like we

really need was it. The magician pengeless is how much

you have to hate someone to really believe the Gospel

and not tell them. We desperately need to help the

lost person see that they're in rebellion against God. And

I think that there are three different categories of rebel.

There is the unconscious rebel, there is the conscious rebel,

and there is the seeking rebel, which sounds kind of weird.

I couldn't think of a better word for it. But

all these three different types of people or categories of

people are at a different stage of understanding something or

knowing something about the Gospel, but they need the full picture.

The unconscious rebel has no clue that they're a rebel.

Might be someone who is just living their life kind

of indifferent towards religion or maybe ignorant of it or

indifferent towards God. The lost don't always know they're lost.

You have to show them that they're lost. But just

because you don't know what the speed limit is doesn't

mean you're not speeding. We have to pull out the

radar gun and show them, show them that they're speeding.

Just because they don't know that they're a rebel of

God does not mean that they're not. That they stand

innocent before him doesn't mean they're not guilty before him.

You have to show them that there's only two categories

of people when it comes to standing before the Lord,

those who accept Jesus and those who reject him, and

everyone who doesn't accept him by default what rejects him.

So if you're indifferent or you're unaware, then that puts

you in the rejection category. Congratulations, you're an unconscious rebel.

The response might be, but I'm a pretty good person,

well according to what standard of good or whose standard

of good? Though, because according to our own standard, we're

always pretty good. I'm gonna judge myself based off my motives,

I'm gonna judge everyone else based off their actions. That's

what we do. But how do we stack up against

God and his standard? If you ask the person who

thinks they're pretty good if they've ever told a lie?

This is some I stole this from Ray come for

you know, But ask them if they've ever told a lie,

Because if you've broken one part of the law, you're

a lawbreaker. That puts you at odds. Just one lie

puts you at odds with a perfect and holy God.

And his perfect standard. You've rejected him as Lord and

you've rebelled against his commands. But at the heart of

all this, it's still a worship problem. This is still

a worship problem. By breaking God's law and not living

for him, who are you living for instead? By being

indifferent or remaining ignorant of him? By default? Who are

you bowing down to? Who do you end up serving?

Who do you end up trying to appease? Or who

do you end up trying to keep happy? Every single time,

it boils down to serving and worshiping me. I love

me some me, and if I'm not following the Lord,

I'm gonna start serving myself. If I'm not worshiping the

Lord by default, I will start serving and worshiping myself,

doing everything for my own happiness, according to my own desires.

It's all self worship. We've made ourselves God and bow

and serve ourselves. So this is what we need to

help the unconscious rebel. See, it's not gonna feel like

it's from a I don't even know the right world,

but like an evil place, because they're like I wasn't

even thinking about it, So it's not from an actual

evil place necessarily, but it is in the category of

rejection of the Lord, and that is straight from the devil.

So even if they don't feel anything toward or against God,

they still have directed their worship to something else, something

other than Him. And if all worship belongs to God alone,

then they're a rebel against him. That's the first category.

The second category of lost person is a conscious rebel,

meaning they know something. This is the person who's maybe

heard something about God on YouTube or a podcast somewhere,

but whatever they know about God makes them hate him,

or they think maybe all this Christian stuff is just

one big croc and they refuse to believe it because

it's unbelievable. Maybe they read a little bit of the

Bible and they just grit their teeth at it. But

you got to remember that what the Gospel message sounds

like to those who are not saved. We get that

from First Corinthians, Chapter one says, for the word of

the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but

to us who are being saved, it is the power

of God. For it is written it will destroy the

wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning.

I will thwart something that sounds so silly to them

will be the wisest thing that will blow all of

their wisdom out of the water. The gospel will sound

like foolishness to those who are spiritually dead. It will

sound like foolishness to them. But whether the person thinks

that the gospel message is stupid, or they refuse to

believe it, or maybe they have a more openly hostile

approach and openly hate God, they're conscious of their rebellion

against Him. They know it. They aren't in different, they

aren't ignorant. They consciously reject God. So this group of people,

it's kind of easy to show them a rebelic so

like no, duh, Yes, I'm against God their self, proclaim

that they hate him or reject him or don't believe.

The more difficult part, though, is getting their ear long

enough to tell them the Gospel, the good News, because

they need to hear the rest of the story. They

already know they're in rebellion against Him. But how can

you ever get to the eternal consequences for rebelling against

God if they won't talk to you, or they won't

let you talk to them. I think the answer is

you continue to be a Christian to them, You continue

to be a Christian. You love them, you bless them,

you pray for them. And I also think that it's

really helpful to remember that oftentimes there's an emotive motivation

for someone's rejection or why they have the disposition that

they have. We know that all lost people are blind

and can't see the truth until God opens their eyes.

We know that, and we know that God does it

as we share the gospel. So in order to get

the chance to share the gospel, understand that their rebellion

might actually be coming from some place of hurt in

their life or something that's happened in their past. If

they were told that God always wants to bless them

and if they follow him that they'll be rich and

healthy their whole life. What happens when they pray for

something and God doesn't answer their prayer in the way

that they expected. What happens when their child dies of cancer.

What happens when everything in their life seems to be

falling apart, nothing is going right. Well, now they're mad

at God because of some promise a man made to

them for God that God never made. This world is

broken because of sin. But for those who put faith

in Christ, our hope goes beyond this world, and we

can make it through the sufferings of this life because

look at Two Corinthians, Chapter four, starting in verse sixteen, says,

so we do not lose heart. Though our outer self

is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day

by day for this light momentary affliction. Our perspective, if

we cannot see beyond this world, will always be skewed

from what God's perspective is. We will never view any

of the sufferings of life as light momentary afflictions unless

we renew our mind. For this light momentary affliction is

preparing us for an eternal weight of glory. Beyond all comparison.

You can't even fathom this, the contrast to the sufferings

of life and the eternal glory, weight of glory that's

in the future. You can't even and fathom the comparison.

As we look not to the things that are seen,

not to the here and now, not to what's in

front of us, but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the

things that are unseen are what say it loud, eternal.

This world is not forever. Eternity is forever. But the

conscious rebel can't see eternity yet. So be patient with them.

Be a Christian to them, love them, pray for them,

bless them, and be ready at any moment to give

the answer for the hope that you have in this

really crappy world. Excuse my language. Be ready to give

an answer to the hope that you have. Be ready

to share the gospel with them whenever they give you

their ear. Lovingly show them the consequence of their sin,

and give them the solution, which we're going to talk

about in just a second. But give them the only

hope that we as rebels have in God's eyes. Last

category of rebel is the seeking rebel. This is a

lost person who's looking for hope. They're looking for an

answer to whatever they're going through. This is most likely

rebel that God's probably already starting to draw to himself

because they're open. I'm lucky you. He's brought them right

to you to share the gospel with them. They want

to hear the truth, but you still need to tell

them the truth. They still need to be told that

they have rebelled again. Even though their life might be

in shambles. You need to tell them like, yes, and

your life is that way due to sin, which is

what makes you rebel against God, and tell them the

consequences that are for the rebel for that rebellion. Now

it might not be so hard to convince them that

they're a sinner, though they might already know that. You

might not have to show them all the way they

ways they've rebelled against God. They're gonna get it. Now.

They need the solution, which is the third step in

preaching the gospel to the loss is give them the solution.

And there is only one solution to our rebellion against God.

There is only one. There's only one escape from the

eternal consequences of sin, and that one solution is Jesus.

And I want to look at Isaiah chapter fifty three.

This is verses five and six. I'm not gonna wait

for you to turn there because I just want to

read it. But he was pierced for our transgressions, He

was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement

that brought us what peace. And with his wounds we

are healed, and we, like all we like sheep have

gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way,

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of

us all. Jesus died a sinner death. He died a

rebel's death. And if you put faith in Jesus, you

believe in him, then his death counted as yours. And

that's an amazing truth. The death that you deserve because

of your rebellion against God, Jesus took it. The debt

that you owe to God for your rebellion, Jesus paid it.

The blood of Jesus covers you and washes you white

as snow. Sinless. Jesus had no sin. Sinless Jesus takes

all of your unrighteousness on himself, and he gives you

all of his righteousness. It's only through faith in Jesus

that are sin of worshiping anything or anyone other than

God has forgiven Jesus. Death is what reconciles all those

who believe back to God, makes us in right standing

with him. Can't have the worship team come on, please,

only Jesus death that reconciles us to Him. So that

steps one, two, and three you've told the lost person

or the rebel who the true God of the universe is,

and that to him alone belongs all worship. Then you've

helped them see their rebellion, graciously, humbly, lovingly that at

the core their rebellion is a worship problem. It's that

they're worshiping the wrong thing, and the consequences for worshiping

the wrong thing, the consequences for their rebellion against a holy, perfect,

eternal God is eternal torment in hell. But the story

never ends there, because the next step is you give

them the solution that faith in Jesus brings them forgiveness

for all their sins, past, present, and future, and they

get eternal life. But if I were to add one

more step to this, if I were to add step

number four, it would be this, pray like crazy. We

tell them who the true God is, help them see

their rebellion, give them the solution. But we gotta pray

like crazy. Salvation belongs to God. Salvation belongs to the Lord.

He is sovereign over the whole process of salvation from

beginning to end. So we need to pray like their

eternal life depends on it. Because no amount of persuasion

can convince a spiritually dead person to become alive. Let

me say that again because I really want you to

catch that. There's no amount of persuasion that can convince

a spiritually dead person to come alive. It is only

an act of God from his own hand that makes

that happen. God brings spiritually dead people to spiritual life.

God is the one who opens people's eyes to see

him as the only true God of the universe. He

has to do something for them to see that, to

see him as the one who created everything, who breathed

out the stars. Do you guys know how many stars

there are? Jordan, tell me the weird thing about planets?

There's more plant yes, say it is that even on

say to this, Yeah, there are more planets in the

universe than there have been seconds since the creation of it.

That's a lot. And God breathed them into existence. Are

you kidding me? He has to open your eyes to

see that is true. He has to ow open your

eyes to know that He's the one who made the oceans,

which haven't even been fully discovered and we've been on

this planet for a long time. He sets the tides,

He tells water where to go and where it can't

go put as many sandbags out there as you want.

If the water says it's going somewhere, it's going somewhere

and you can do nothing about it. God says water

doesn't go here, and it doesn't go there. God is

the one who raised mountains out of the ground. We

have a beautiful view of Mount Rainier. God pulled that

out of the ground. God is the one. If you

were here last week and heard my ridiculous thing I

said at the beginning, He's the one who causes the

wind to blow and keep blowing. I still don't know

how that works. God created the smallest molecules. God created

you and I, and He breathed life into each and

every one of us. But only God can open your

eyes to be able to see him like that. He

has to do something. It's only God who can open

someone's eyes to see they're are rebel Otherwise, why would

I care to see all the ways that we've rejected

him as king, and how we've rejected his rule and

his law. It's only God who can make us truly

believe that the consequences for rebelling against him are real.

We would not feel conviction of sin if God did

not bring that, and it's only God who can open

our eyes to see Jesus as the only solution for

our sin of rebellion. When He removes our heart of

sin stone and gives us a heart of flesh, brings

us from spiritual death to spiritual life, brings us out

of darkness into light, makes us from a child of

wicked rebellion into an obedient child that's an heir of

his kingdom. He has to open our eyes to see

Jesus as lovely, to see Jesus as God King, our Lord,

and our savior. God has to open our eyes to

change us. That's the only way we will stop worshiping

ourselves as God see. Only way a lost person stops

worshiping themselves is if God opens their eyes to Thats

the only way they will finally submit to Him his

Lord and put faith in Jesus. So the most important

thing that we could ever do when preaching the Gospel

to lost people is pray. We have to to pray

like their eternal life depends on it. Because only God

can change a heart. Only God can change a heart.

Only God can bring a dead rebel to life, and

he does it through us preaching the gospel. So yes,

be obedient, preach the gospel to the lost people everywhere

you go. But also pray like crazy and ask God

to do the impossible part to save the lost person

Luke chapter eighteen. For it is easier for a camel

to go through the eye of a needle than for

a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Those

who heard it said, then, who can be saved? But

what he say back, what is impossible with man is

possible with God. What's impossible for us is no big deal,

for God is for good. In fact, it's only possible

with God. So preach the gospel to the lost, help

them or tell them who the true God is. Help

them see their rebellion most loving, gentle way possible, give

them the solution of Jesus, and pray like crazy. Amen.

Can you guys stand to your feet please,