The Journey of the Bullseye Christian

Chapter number four.

There's a verse there that.

It stays in my head and in my heart and just kind of rotates around

all the time.

I shared it with you several months ago.

It simply says, draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you.

We don't use the word nigh very much, but it means near.

Draw nigh.

Draw near to God, he'll draw nigh to you.

It's almost like God is saying, you go first.

I know God is the instigator and starts everything, but in this

verse it just seems to say, james says, draw nigh to God and

he'll draw nigh to you.

And we talked about that, about how near is near.

And not everybody would define the word near the same way.

How near are you?

How near is someone else?

And I made that statement that we're as near as we want to be.

God never put limits.

He never put up fences and say, you can get close, but not that

close.

He says, just draw nigh and I'll draw nigh to you.

And I want to talk a little bit tonight about this subject called

the Bullseye Christian.

The Bullseye Christian.

One of my favorite games growing up, and still to some extent,

is horseshoes.

I love to pitch horseshoes.

One time I played with a champion horseshoe player in Columbus,

Georgia, and he was out there playing, and I went over and reinvested

myself.

I didn't know he was a champion.

He said, you want to play a little bit?

I said, sure.

He says, well, I'm not bragging, but I'll just go ahead

and tell you now I'm a national champion horseshoe player.

I said, well, this ought to be interesting.

And I said, well, let's do it.

And he never, ever missed making a ringer.

Never the whole time we were there, just one after another.

I couldn't believe it.

I didn't play with him much after that, but growing up, I used

to play horseshoes.

And my best friend and I, we'd walk to school and we'd come home

and he'd go, he lived a little further than I.

This mic's a little bit loud.

It's distracting me.

If you would turn it down just a little and.

But we play.

We'd come home and play.

He'd stop and play.

We'd play one game.

We had a post there, and we put a little notch how many games

I'd won and how many he won.

As far as I know, that post is still there.

But what about archery?

Has anybody ever done archery?

Shooting Some of you.

All right.

Well, believe it or not, even though I failed in horseshoe, in

archery, I never missed a bullseye.

But I had a little strategy.

I would just shoot the arrow and wherever it hit, then I would

draw the bullseye around it.

So I always got a bullseye.

And that's the way I think.

A lot of people say, well, draw not a God.

I'll just go as close as I can and I'll draw that circle, and there

I am.

But it's interesting to me that when Jesus started his earthly

ministry, we find the first time we find the word multitudes

plural.

He drew multitudes of people.

But as he continued his ministry, the rings got smaller and

smaller and smaller.

The multitudes got smaller.

Go back and read it.

I'll show it to you here in just a moment.

They got smaller and smaller.

Started out with multitudes.

In fact, we find that In Matthew, chapter 9, verse 36, the

Matthew 9:36

multitudes, Jesus many times would call people and they would

follow for a while.

But God reciprocates our moves.

The Bible says, give and it shall be given unto you.

Call unto me and.

And I'll answer thee.

Turn ye unto me, and I will turn unto you.

God said, return unto me and I will return unto you.

It's like he reciprocates what we do.

He tells us to turn.

Then he says, then I'll turn.

Draw nigh to God, he'll draw nigh to you.

Here's an interesting one, though.

He said, I love them that love me.

That's kind of interesting, isn't it?

We know that God loved the world and he had compassion and he

died for the sins of the whole world.

But in the context of the Bible, it says, when you love me.

I know he loves us even when we're unlovable.

But there's something about that verse that says, along with

the other verses, you love me and I'll love you back.

God loved me while I was yet sinner and Christ died for me.

But this verse, I love them that love me, is not in the context

of redemption.

It's more about relation or affection, expressing love to God

daily.

I love them that love me.

I'll love you back.

No matter how much power and work and money is behind electricity,

we get no benefit from it unless the switch is turned on, right?

Think about that for a moment.

The switch is turned on.

It's like God put switches in the Bible.

When we turn on the switch, he's omnipotent, he's almighty.

There's nothing Too hard for God.

But God, in his desire and design, placed these switches.

Prayer, call unto me, I'll answer you.

That's the switch.

Turn on.

Prayer, peace, joy, blessings, forgiveness, wisdom, courage, everything

we need for anything we face.

But we do not get one ounce of benefit unless we flip the switch.

In other words, we act.

Faith is an action word.

It always is an action word.

You read in Hebrews 11 and go back there sometime.

If you remember your grammar and circle every verb, almost every

verse is a verb.

Because faith always produces action.

We don't really believe it until we do it, until we try it,

until we test it, until we turn the switch.

God says, knock and it shall be opened unto you.

That's a switch, isn't it?

Ask, give, and it shall be given unto you.

And then he moves, and then you move, and then he moves.

And that's the Christian life.

It's about God moving and our moving back and forth.

But in the Bible and in the lifetime of Christ, people follow

Jesus for different reasons.

But the crowds diminished.

Multitudes.

The Bible says in Matthew 9, verse 36, the multitudes, most of

Matthew 9:36

them probably weren't even saved.

They came for various reasons.

They were curious.

They had heard about this man that can perform miracles.

They had heard about this and about what he did and how he spoke

and all those things.

And so they would show up.

Joel said in the book of Joel the Prophet, he said, multitudes,

multitudes in the valley of decision.

These were people who had not made up their mind.

They couldn't say, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Because Jesus saw them as sheep, having no shepherd.

In the whole multitude, it was mixed, unsaved souls, lost people,

families that make up the people of the entire world.

Jesus referred to his Sermon on the Mount as the crowd on the

broad road that leadeth to destruction.

And many there be that find it.

Maybe you know people who are in the group, but they're not in

the family.

The family of God.

You can be inside a church building, but outside the family

of God, people can be religious, but be religiously lost,

never born again.

The multitudes.

But then in Acts chapter four.

Let's just look at that real quick.

The Book of Acts, chapter 4, and I think it's verse 32.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of

one soul.

Neither said any of them that all of the things which he possessed

was his own.

But they had all things common.

So there was a group in that first ring, the multitudes.

But then we come to that Second ring.

And these were people who trusted Christ as their Savior.

Some of them responded.

Their action is based upon repentance and faith.

Turning to Christ.

There's three things that we used to often.

I used to often emphasize when presenting the gospel and telling

people about Christ.

Three things.

Sense the need.

A lot of people don't get saved because they don't sense the

need of being saved.

They don't sense the need of they've done anything really bad.

Well, what's really bad and what's kind of bad and what's bad

and what's not so bad?

I mean, where do you stop sensing the need?

That's where it starts.

If you just jump to someone and give them the gospel, how to

be saved.

And they say, you want to go to hell?

No, I don't want to go to hell.

You want to go to heaven?

Yes.

Okay.

Bow your head and pray this prayer.

Ask Jesus to come into your heart.

You'll be saved.

But they never sense the need to be saved.

But then to see the significance.

Second of all, the significance of Christ.

Why Christ?

Why couldn't somebody else?

His death, burial and resurrection.

Christ had to be a man to die.

For a man.

God can't die.

So Christ became a man to die.

He had to be God in order to provide perfect righteousness for

us.

He was raised from the dead.

Sense the need, see the significance, and then secure the

benefits.

Secure them.

That's what it means to receive Christ.

Draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you.

Multitudes.

Out of that came a multitude.

And then we go to John.

If you turn your Bible to John, chapter 6, verse 10, we go

John 6:10

to the second ring, or actually the third ring on the target.

John, chapter 6 and verse number 10.

John 6 · chapter mention

You'll remember it as soon as I start reading it.

Jesus said, make the men sit down.

There was much grass in the place.

So the men sat down.

The number was what, 5,000?

We don't know how many was in the first multitude.

We don't really know how many was in the second multitude that

came out of that.

But now we're down to 5,000.

The smaller circle.

And Jesus fed them, the Bible says.

But after that, he began to preach, to preach the word to them.

They came for the dinner, but not for the sermon.

Jesus told his disciples to have the crowd sit down.

And the Bible says that Jesus actually said, I'm the bread of life,

did he not?

But he said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every

word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

And so he used that analogy.

Jesus was going to feed them the word.

Well, this was the crowd that wanted the word of God.

A lot of people come out of one group into another group and

they say, well, that church isn't too bad, but there's just too

much Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible.

And some people say, give me more, give me more, give me more.

They can't get enough.

But some people have more than they want.

Sometimes I wish this crowd was bigger, but usually the more

emphasis on the Bible.

You know, the Bible has a powerful way of either drawing or

driving.

Have you noticed that?

It's just kind of like a sword.

The Bible says the word of God is like a sword.

There's no way for a person to be spiritual unless he first becomes

scriptural when the bread is broken.

We sang the song recently.

Come and dine, come and dine.

Draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you.

But the next group, 500, who are they?

Jesus said to them in Luke 9, if any man will come after me, let

him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

This is the group who not only hear the word of God, but they make

a decision to follow the God of the Word.

If any man come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross

and follow me.

Whosoever will save his life shall lose his life.

But whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall

save it.

It's one thing to hear the word of God preached, but it's another

thing to make a decision to obey it, to follow separates the

crowd.

I mean, here we went from 5,000 sitting down, eating, to 500

just like that.

Jesus said, follow me.

Take up the cross and follow me.

You're never going to get the multitudes or the multitude or maybe

a lot of thousands upon thousands to cross the line of self

denial, self will, self centeredness.

It's always been that way.

It always will.

Jesus made it very clear, if you follow me, you're going to have

to die.

That's what it crossed for.

The cross wasn't to wear around your neck.

It wasn't anything like that.

Somebody who had the cross meant that they were getting ready

to die.

But Jesus said, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground

and die, it abideth alone.

But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

He's not talking about physical death, he's talking about

spiritual death.

Dying to self.

The piano over here is dead until someone with talent plays it

right.

Just sitting there and you just look at it all day long.

It won't make a sound like putting on a coat when you put a

coat on it.

The coat that I have on does what I do.

If it starts doing what it wants to do without me, I'm getting

out of here.

Amen.

It's cooperative.

If my car.

I'm driving down the road with a car and the car decides to do what

it wants to do, I get rid of it because the car is out of control.

It can lead to disaster.

Like a life without God.

You get in the picture.

Multitudes.

Multitude.

5,000 eating bread, which is a picture of the word of God.

500.

And then it goes from 500 to 120. Who are these?

Acts, chapter one, verse number 14.

These were people who were doing something.

They were willing to do something that I suppose is maybe

one of the hardest things for Christians to do.

And I think you might agree with me.

Wait, the waiters.

You're not going to have big crowds of people waiting.

They want to take charge.

I want it now.

Mm.

Jesus said, go to Jerusalem and tarry.

Wait until the power of God comes down.

You'll be endued with power.

You know?

I need to think about that more in my own life.

When I get tired of waiting, I need to remind myself, hey, this

might be a matter of more power.

If I'm willing to wait instead of taking over, I might be able to

experience more of God's power in my life.

It's one thing to pray, but it's another thing to tarry.

They're not the same.

It's one thing to read the Bible, but it's another thing to

tarry.

To wait.

How many times?

If I'd have thought about it and had more time, I would have counted

how many times that word wait is in the Bible is a lot.

The difference between success and failure in the natural and the

supernatural is waiting.

I don't like it.

Do you?

I don't think you would stand up and say, I do.

There may be some say I just love to wait.

But it's not our nature to wait.

Our old nature says, I want to be satisfied now.

What does it mean?

It means to become consumed and obsessed and desperate and hungry

for the unexplainable, willing to pay the price, making it a priority.

Revival and tarrying is inseparable waiting.

Salvation is free.

But there's a price tag on revival in God's power.

And it's connected to waiting because waiting is trusting.

So that kind of Causes us all to bow our head a little bit quickly

because we think, oh, we trust God.

But when we have to wait, we don't want to trust God.

Trusting God's timing, that's not an easy challenge.

In fact, sometimes it takes most of our life before we think,

you know, I hurry too much.

I'm worn out now and tired and old.

I wish I'd learned to wait.

I wouldn't have made all those mistakes.

Price tag, waiting.

Only 120 people went up to that upper room, waited on God.

That was the church, by the way.

That was the early church.

It had already been formed.

Christ started his church before Pentecost, But what about

the next one?

Because it's getting smaller, smaller and smaller.

It went from 120 to 70.

Anybody remember that?

70.

70.

Two by two, two by two, went out and shared the gospel and talked

and told people about Jesus.

Started out with multitudes, multitudes, thousands.

500, 120.

But now 70 in that early church went out two by two.

They're going out to share the gospel.

God intended every believer to tell all he knows about the gospel

to other people.

But it's still not over 70.

Most preachers would be pretty excited to have 70 people out on

visitation.

Or 70 people say, let's go soul winning.

Be pretty unusual these days.

But then the numbers shrunk to 12.

Anybody know who the 12 were?

They were the what?

Disciples.

The 12 that came out of the 70.

They stepped across the line.

These were the 12 men who were willing to quit their jobs, sell

their houses, and follow Christ.

Actually, probably these days, people would say, oh, yeah, they

were the 12 fanatics.

I know God doesn't call everyone to leave their home and

quit their job and to follow.

But I think he calls all of us to be willing to do that.

And most of us would say, yeah, I'd be willing.

But we've never really been tested, have we?

We've never really been tested with, I want you to follow me.

Where are we going?

What difference does it make?

Follow me.

How much time I've got.

What difference does it make?

I think I've shared with you several times how close my granddaddy

and I were.

And we went everywhere together.

Everywhere.

I mean, he never left.

It was four kids, but I was the oldest.

And wherever he went, let's go.

And, man, I ran to the car.

But when I became older and almost in my teens, I remember like

it was yesterday.

Granddad would say, you want to go?

And I said, where are we going?

I never asked him, where we were going before.

I just wanted to be with him.

Didn't matter.

A lot of people say, well, yeah, I'll follow Jesus, but where

are we going?

How long are we going to be gone?

Who's going to pay the bills?

How much is it going to cost?

You see, it gets smaller.

The crowd gets smaller.

We're not talking about multitudes.

We're not talking about thousands.

We're not talking about hundreds.

Twelve, you say?

Well, God hasn't called me to do that.

Well, have you volunteered?

This will really date me, okay?

And I've already told you, I know I'm an old man, but I remember

very clearly in elementary school when the highlight of the

day was who gets to clean the erasers?

He'd go, oh, please, preacher, you're older than I thought you were.

But I remember that like it was yesterday.

And I remember just five minutes before.

And I mean, we were.

Let me, let me, let me.

And the teacher would always call somebody else.

And, man, my heart would sink.

What about when the Lord calls today for people to volunteer to

do the work?

Do you jump up and say, let me, let me, let me, like you used

to do when you first got saved?

Yeah, I'll do it.

I'll clean up, I'll set up.

I'll take it down.

Just tell me what needs to be done.

I'll do it.

But in most churches now, we assume somebody else will do it,

and we're busy and we're tired and understand that, and God understands

that.

I'm just talking about in here.

I'm talking about the bullseye Christian.

I mean, the one that gets right there in the center.

Who is it?

Well, after the 12, then it dropped down to three.

Peter, James and John.

They were the inner circle.

Remember, they were there in the garden of Gethsemane with Jesus

as he was praying.

I know they fell asleep, but it was only three.

They might have been in that first one.

The multitudes maybe, I don't know.

But now it's down to three.

Hmm.

But there's one final call.

Who's going to be the bullseye?

Who's going to be the one?

There was only one disciple at the cross, as they hung Jesus on

the cross, there was two women and one man who was.

Was John.

John was going to be the bullseye Christian.

He would be the one who stayed to.

How about that?

He was not just called John.

In fact, I'm almost through here.

But in the Gospel of John, chapter number 13, verse number 23.

Now, there was leaning On Jesus bosom one of his disciples

whom Jesus loved.

Now I know he loved them all.

Don't you know that we know that Jesus didn't have favorites.

But out of those, there was only one at that table that was leaning

on Jesus pretty close.

Wouldn't you say, In John, same book, John, Gospel of John,

chapter number 21, verse number seven.

Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, it

is the Lord.

Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his

fisher's coat unto him, for he was naked and had cast himself into

the sea.

In John 21:20, then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple

John 21:20

whom Jesus loved following, which also leaned on his breast at

supper and said, lord, which is he that betrayeth thee.

Jesus loved Peter.

He loved James.

He loved all his disciples.

But nowhere else in the Bible does it say that disciple whom Jesus

loved.

Doesn't that interest you?

Isn't that something that you would try to imagine what it would

be like for?

Jesus said, you know that woman over there at Heritage that

I love?

He loves all of us.

But this was different.

This was special.

This was one who got the attention of Christ, The only one

Jesus ever actually said this.

Why?

I don't know exactly all the answers, but John loved Christ so

much that it made an impression on him.

Nothing between them.

Totally communicated, committed.

Can you imagine Jesus saying that about you?

If you was to put yourself on that target, would you be the bullseye

Christian?

It doesn't mean you would love Jesus more than everybody else.

That's not the point.

That's not what he was talking about.

He just said, there's something about John, the beloved.

He loves me.

Everywhere I go, I bump into him.

He never leaves me.

He wants to be there.

And he was there all the way to the very end.

John, Would you be in the bullseye?

Would you be the bullseye Christian?

I was telling Shelley, when I was thinking about this, about a

lady, she's still living and still goes to victory.

Her husband, Powell Johnson, he was a.

A man that served God in a wonderful way.

But she reminds me every once in a while.

She, for some reason, wrote down a lot of notes when I would

preach sermons.

And she'd say, hey, come here.

Said, look at there.

You preached that on such and such a date.

She'd keep a.

She'd kind of keep a mark there.

But it wasn't too long ago when we were talking, and she said,

you remember that sermon you preached, the bullseye Christian?

I said, yes, I do.

She said, ever since I heard that.

That's been my prayer.

I said, lord, I want to be the bullseye Christian when the crowds

get smaller and smaller and people leave and people quit and

people go and people this and people that.

She said, I want to be that one that stayed by the staff all

the way to the end.

I just want you to think about that tonight and in the days ahead.

Because people come and people go, you're still here.

Other people may go, will you still be here?

Maybe they won't.

Maybe this will be the group of people.

This will be the ones.

This will be the Gideon's 300.

And God says, now I can do something.

Started out with 32,000.

And God said, that's way too many.

Because if I give the victory, everybody will know.

Well, who wouldn't win a victory?

He had 32,000 people, people and then went.

I mean, just like that, 20,000 of them left.

And then more and more.

Would you bow your heads for just a moment and think about this

simple thought, the bull's eye Christian.

It's not wrong, it's not pride thing to say.

I want to be that kind of a Christian.

What are you going to be known for after the Lord calls you home?

What will people say about you?

I'm just asking.

Famous, maybe.

Is it wrong to want to be famous for God?

No.

As long as we don't brag on it, put our chest out and our nose

up in the air and say, I'm famous.

But there wouldn't be anything wrong for you to say, lord, I want

to be famous for my faith.

I want to believe you.

I want to prove you.

I want to be famous for being faithful.

Lord, it's all for your glory.

It's by you.

It's nothing I can do.

But I want to be known.

I want to be famous for this not being selfish, but for being

selfless.

I want to be famous for witnessing.

I want to be famous for compassion.

I want to be famous for being a prayer warrior.

I want to be famous for being an encourager.

Those I could list.

We could go on and on and on.

There were men and women in the Bible that God seemed to underline.

And they were famous for certain things.

They weren't super Christians.

There were people that allowed God to use them.

You don't want to be famous for being a gossiper or a tightwad

or a complainer or always late or untrustworthy.

You don't want to be famous for being a bragger or easily offended

or always knowing it all or having a bad temper and we could

go on and on.

What would you want to be famous for if you could do it?

I'm not talking about bragging.

I'm talking about for God.

For the glory of God.

What would you say tonight, Lord, I want to be the bullseye Christian.

Let's stand with our heads bowed and eyes closed just for another

moment.