Radical Sharing -October 26, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

This morning, we're going to finish out this radical, being radical like Jesus

series. And I hope, I know it's just been kind of a quick one,

but I hope you've enjoyed it.

And maybe at least after this one, you know, we talked about radical prayer

and how we need to just radically come before the Lord, bring other people to the Lord.

And in our prayer, we talked last week about, well, not last week,

last week we had some magic tricks. Don't worry, I'm not going to do any magic tricks.

I'm grateful we didn't ask for a volunteer last week to disappear somebody because

my family would have said, you go ahead.

Today, I want to take it a step farther, and we're going to talk about radical sharing.

When you had something happen to you, whether good or whether bad,

hopefully it was good, what's the most exciting news that you experienced?

Think about that for a minute. I was excited to hear about the Homedale football

score on Friday. I didn't know it was a home game, man.

The senior night. Is that right, Kate? It was senior night. And Kate,

you had a great game, I hear from the stats and looking at the stats and hearing

from other people, but was it Cole Valley, whatever the name of that school is now?

But they got a thumping and praise the Lord for Cade and for him using his athletic

prowess to bring Homedale to a victory. That's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. Praise the Lord for that. That's exciting news, right?

Maybe for you, you've had some different kind of exciting news before.

I know for some, when they get test results back from the doctor and everything's

clear and good, praise the Lord.

That's exciting news. And I'm discovering for myself as I get those test results

back as I'm aging, continuing, I'm not going the other way, but as I'm aging,

it's good to get some test scores

back from some blood work that you had done and the things are good.

And so I had that happen to me this last week. I had to.

Had to give blood. I always hate to do that, but they're so good over here.

My nurse got it out real quick, painless. And whatever she did and blessing

those vials as they went, I had some normal blood work that came back that was

normal again instead of when I get my test result says abnormal. That scares you.

Everything's good. It just usually means my cholesterol is high or my sugar

is too high, but everything was down in the balance. So I said, praise the Lord.

And I was so excited. I had to share with Melanie, but then I got to the car

and forgot what I was doing.

And then she kept texting me, you know, hey, how'd it go? She was really wanting

to know, you know, what the doctors say, you know.

And I don't take my wife to the doctor with me anymore.

She takes serious what those doctors say. No, but I've got good doctors and

they take really good care of me.

I had a new doctor this week and she took really good care of me. So praise the Lord.

But I think about that good news, the good news you received,

the good news you experience, those things that you experience.

You just can't wait to go and to share that with someone else. You know my son Noah.

If you don't know him, he's the one that walks around everywhere,

and he's always got something to share.

And that's the same at home as well. It could be three o'clock in the morning,

and he will discover something that he can't wait until the morning to share with us.

And so he has to barge in our room, and he has to tell us all about it.

It's just the way his brain works, just the way God made him.

And so there's always something exciting he has to share and.

When there's those late night football games and I've got to preach the next

morning and I don't care what the score is until I wake up the next morning,

he will tell me when it's midnight,

one o'clock, hey, dad, the Broncos won or, you know, the Bulldogs won or whoever

I'm rooting for in whatever team it was. He'll let me know about that.

He just has this excitement that he can't wait to share with other people.

I don't know about you, but I hope you have something in your life like that.

It's just something so exciting, so incredible. You can't help but to share that with someone else.

And the story we're going to examine this morning in the Gospel of John,

it's one of those stories where it's just, what's the word they use when a video

goes just bonanza? I think it's called viral.

I wish they called it bonanza. That's a good word.

Hey, look, my video went bonanza this week. I guess it doesn't roll off the tongue very good.

I'm not good at starting catchphrases, as you can tell. But this was a viral

moment in the Gospels, and it's kind of long, and usually we have a tradition

where I ask you to stand, and you're welcome to do that if you're able to and willing.

This is a long passage, so if you'd like to stay seated, that's okay too.

But whatever God would like you to do this morning, or whatever your conscience

would like you to do, I want to read John 1, verses 35, and I'm just going to

John 1:35

go down through 49 this morning.

But hear the word of the Lord from the gospel of John today, starting in verse 35.

The next day, John, John the Baptist, baptizer, was there again with two of his disciples.

When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, look, the Lamb of God.

When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.

Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, what do you want?

They said, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?

Come, he replied, and you will see. So they went and they saw where he was staying

and they spent the day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said

and who had followed Jesus.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him,

we have found the Messiah, that is the Christ.

And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, son of John. You will be called

Cephas, which translated is Peter.

The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

Finding Philip, he said to him, Follow me.

Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida.

Philip found Nathanael and told him, We have found the one Moses wrote about

in the law and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nazareth, can anything good come from there? Nathanael asked.

Come and see, said Philip.

When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, here truly is an Israelite

in whom there is no deceit.

How do you know me? Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.

Then Nathanael declared, Rabbi, you are the son of God. you are the king of Israel.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Lord, thank you for this example

that we see of how men were called to follow you, God, called to follow Jesus.

And Lord, we just asked this morning, you would speak to us in our hearts as

we radically share about Jesus with others.

And so, Father, would you do that this morning, God? Again, we ask,

search our hearts, we pray in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen. Thank you. You could be seated.

We talk about what it means to radically share and really to share Jesus with others.

That seems kind of radical in our day and age and this time where people say,

hey, believe what you want and just keep it to yourself.

And then you've got a way of belief in Christianity where it's,

no, you've got to tell others about it.

Again, it goes back to that good news.

Once you find Jesus, I mean, really find him in a way that your life is touched,

that your life is transformed, you can't help but tell others about him.

You can't help but tell others about what he's done for you.

And for some, that's going to be radical. That's going to be way out there.

Whoa, why would you do that? Just

have your own belief and your own belief system and keep it to yourself.

But the problem is, when you find Jesus, you can't do that.

Because Jesus calls you to live radically in a way that it blesses other people,

in a way that you interact with other people in their lives.

And I know that can be scary for some.

Just the way we talked about radically praying can be scary for some,

and radically caring for others can be scary for some. Don't be scared.

With Jesus, you don't have to be afraid of nothing. With Christ in your life.

God can do an incredible work. And so I just want to quickly,

because I know the chili is warming up and your stomachs are going to start

growling and you're going to be ready, but I want to feed your spirit first, okay?

So listen this morning, three points from this passage about radically sharing like Jesus.

First of all, I want you to know radical sharing begins with an invitation.

If we look again at verse 39, Jesus just says to the two disciples of John the

Baptist, Come and you will see.

There's an invitation. Hey, what are you doing? Come and you'll find out.

Come and follow me and I'll show you what's going on.

When you radically share, it just begins with an invitation.

You know, an invitation, it shouldn't be anything scary. It just means,

hey, I want to spend some time with you.

Or I want you to be excited about something that's going on.

And so would you come and would you be a part of this?

Annika had her, well, today is Annika's birthday, by the way.

So if you see her, say happy birthday. The big number, 1-1.

And we got invited to her birthday party and just quite the big shindig yesterday.

But it was an invitation, an invitation that said, hey, I want you to be here with us.

A simple invitation is I want to spend some time with you.

These two disciples wanted to spend some time with this guy that John the Baptist

said, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Wow, that sounds interesting. Let's go find out. Hey, come and see where I'm

at. Okay, let's go find out. These two disciples, man, they're just so willing.

An invitation is a first step into some radical things that God wants to do.

When we think about this passage, we see that Andrew invites his brother Simon

to come and to follow Jesus.

We see that Philip then invites Nathaniel.

And I want to tell you that in this invitation, it's an invitation to spend time.

It's an invitation to invest your life in what's going on in this moment right

here and to see what God is doing.

Jesus even invites us as he says, here, come and see.

All the way back down in verse 36, he told Nathaniel, come and see.

Philip said that. Jesus invites us, come and see.

Today you've come and you've seen. You've come and you'll taste chili and you've

come to be in the presence of God and God's people and to fellowship,

to learn, to study together, to pray together.

You've came and you've seen, you've experienced, you've tasted.

When's the last time that you invited someone to come over to your house?

It was probably around a holiday. Maybe it was a birthday.

Maybe it was an instance where it was a Thanksgiving or a Christmas.

I know those holidays are coming up, but.

When's the last time you invited someone to enter your space and just to kind

of be there present with them?

Maybe when's the last time you invited someone to church? It's probably this

week because you knew we were going to have a chili feed, right?

And so to invite them to say, hey, pastor doesn't want to eat all this chili

at home all week, so would you please come?

I had a lot of pizza last week because of what was left over.

But you know what? You guys did awesome last week in taking that pizza,

so thank you. Thank you for that.

When was the last time that you invited someone to meet Jesus,

that you introduced someone to Jesus?

Radical sharing begins with a simple invitation.

A simple invitation to come and to see, come and to experience.

Secondly, what we see from this passage this morning is just simply radical sharing is personal.

When you share on this level, it's a personal thing. Really what it is, it's relational.

It's a relational experience. You want to be in relationship with somebody else.

You want to invite them into your life, like we said, but you want to do that

because we share best with those that we know and those that we love, right?

You know, when you want to share some news with someone, and especially if it's

in your family, someone that knows you and that loves you, they know all your

quirks and all your intricacies, good or bad or indifferent,

and they love you anyway.

When they know you so deeply and you share news with them, they're going to

be so excited with you, or they're going to say, ah, you're pulling my leg.

That really didn't happen that way, did it?

You know, when our kids were little, we would get some wild stories sometimes

because they have incredible imaginations.

And so they would come and tell you a story and you're like,

ah, did it really happen like that?

Well, Adam did this and Noah did that or Emma did this.

And well, I think you're kind of blowing it out of proportion.

And what really happened?

They've got an imagination that just could run wild sometimes.

But when they know you, when it's a personal relationship, when you've invited

them in to share your space and you've got some great things to share with them,

especially spiritually about Jesus,

there's a modicum or level of trust right there to where you can say,

hey, this is what God did for me.

When we look at this again in verse 41, we can see that the first thing Andrew

brings Simon to Jesus, again, verse 41, the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon.

Andrew found Jesus, and he couldn't wait to find his brother to tell him all about him.

But more than that, what Andrew does is to tell him, we have found the Messiah.

We have found the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus, the next verse says.

Have you brought your family to Jesus?

Have you done your best to share who Jesus is with them? To say,

this is who Jesus is, and this is what he's done in my life.

This is how my life has been changed because of my relationship with Jesus.

And I want you to have this same kind of relationship with him.

It's a powerful statement of how much you love your family.

I mean, imagine if you had this crazy disease, maybe even it was a genetic disease

that affected your whole family, and a cure was developed and you discovered,

hey, this could help my family.

Wouldn't you want to share that with your family to help make their life better,

even maybe to save their lives?

You would want that. You couldn't wait to share with them this medical discovery

that you discovered, that you found out about.

You'd want their life to be changed, transformed. And when we think about it,

that's what we want to do for our family when it comes to our life with Christ.

Because we know what the Bible says. We know the Bible says that for all have

sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

All have sinned and fallen short of what God expects.

None of us in our own power can get there, so what? We had to have Jesus be

able to come and to pay the price for our sin, to enable us to live up to the

standard that God wants all of us to live at.

Well, what's the problem? Well, the problem is the wages of sin is death.

But the gift of God, we know, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That's what the Romans road says, the Romans passage.

When we find out that there's a spiritual solution to our sin problem,

that we can be forgiven. We can be set free like we were singing about this morning.

We can be set free from sin. We don't have to keep doing it, keep going back to it.

But we can live a free life, free from that burden, to live in the holiness

that God requires because of what Jesus did for us.

That's news you can't wait to share if you've

got addiction in your family if you've got alcoholism in

your family if you've got other things that just seems like well it's just a

curse on my family it's jesus who can break that curse it's because of what

jesus did through his death barrel and resurrection that he can give your family

victory over that stuff you see how personal jesus can get that's why we call

him the great redeemer or.

Because he can change, transform your life if you'll trust him.

And that's what Andrew wanted for Simon Peter. We have found the Messiah.

We see in the second little picture here that there's a man named Philip,

and Philip then shares with Nathaniel.

Now, we know that they were friends because it says in verse 44,

Philip, like Andrew and Peter, they're from the town of Bethsaida,

so they were all living in the same little town together.

You know how small towns are, right?

News travels fast, whether it's true or not. And I told you about my buddy before

that when we lived in a small town in Springville, California, a little foothill town,

that my buddy went down to the local Chevron, the big gas station in town that

was also the grocery store, and he picked up some cranberry juice.

And by the time he got home, he already had about three phone calls saying,

hey, I hear you got a kidney infection or a bladder infection, I mean.

What? What are you talking about? Well, so-and-so saw you walking from the Chevron

with your cranberry juice, so isn't that what's going on?

Small towns, right? That happens. Well, we know that these two knew each other,

Philip shares with Nathaniel, because friendship matters.

Not only do you want Jesus to impact your friends when you radically share about

him, but you want your family, but your friends as well.

You want everyone to know about Jesus, and Philip wanted Nathaniel to know about Jesus.

And it just comes down to this, to radically share since it's personal,

it's just sharing your story. We're told in John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

Of a man who was blind, and he was healed by Jesus.

He was just sitting there minding those business, asking for money of people

that came by. Jesus healed him.

The priests found out about it, and they were kind of wondering what was going on in John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

And so they brought this man in a few times, and the second time,

they were really questioning him hard because they were trying to find some

way to accuse Jesus Christ and really bring about an end to his ministry.

They're very jealous of Jesus.

And we see in John 9, 35, that this blind man, who now could see because he

was healed by Jesus, they're asking him all these hard questions.

He says, I don't know what's going on, but he does say in verse 35,

but I do know this, I was blind, and now I can see.

I used to be this way. I don't know what this man Jesus did in my life,

but after he was done praying with me, after he was done doing what he did to

heal me, then I could see again. I don't know about all the theological stuff.

I don't know about all this and that, but I know this guy must have been anointed

by God to do what he did in my life.

Something happened when I met Jesus and it changed me. And that's what exactly

we need to do is to own our story.

Hey, we can all say, well, I used to be a sinner because of the verse I just

mentioned a few moments ago in Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

That means all means all, everybody.

It means I used to be a sinner. Now, the extent of that sin,

I don't know how dirty rotten a heathen that you were.

I don't know all your sins. I don't care to know all your sins.

But even me, my life was filled with sin. I couldn't do anything but sin until I met Jesus.

And it was when I met Jesus, that inclination toward that, that desire to do

that, was transformed by the Spirit of God.

And what Jesus did when I said, Jesus, forgive me of my sin.

Cleanse me from all that unrighteousness. Get that out of my life. I need you, Jesus.

When I cried out to him, even as a little kid, I remember the transformation

that took place in my life.

I didn't want to do the things that I knew were wrong anymore.

But now I had a power not to have to go do those.

As we sang this morning about being free, we weren't a slave to sin anymore when Jesus forgives us.

We're not in bondage. We're not chained to that anymore.

Because the scripture says, again, if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.

That means there is no doubt those chains are not on you anymore.

You are not bound up anymore to do that.

Hallelujah. Praise the Lord for that.

So to share your story, it's personal.

It's just like this man. I used to be this way, but now with Jesus, I am this way.

It doesn't mean you never struggle with stuff, okay?

We still live in a broken world, don't we? There's still brokenness all around

us. There's broken people.

Even in our own families, there's brokenness.

It doesn't mean we ignore all that. It means we do what we can to live as God

wants us to live, the holy life.

Well, taking those one step at a time to grow into what Jesus wants us to,

we might fall. We might stumble.

But we've got to get up because we have the freedom to get up.

We're not chained down anymore to continue in sin.

We can live above the fray of sin. We don't have to do that anymore.

Might you stumble? Yeah.

When your kids started walking, if you had young children and you remember back

that far, them crawling and then walking, you know that kids,

as soon as they start to learn to walk, they just don't start strutting around. It takes a while, right?

They're down on the ground, and then they learn how to stand.

And then they learn how to take one step at a time, and then they're going to fall down.

And then, you know, you've got to help them up, or they grab onto something

to help them up. And there's a process of learning that goes on with that.

The same thing with a person's life, a spiritual life in Christ.

Hey, maybe you just always used to fall down all the time. You were beat up

and bruised from all the falling down that you did. that Jesus saved you.

He said, you don't have to fall anymore.

And he brushes you off and he says, okay, did you used to do the thing,

parents, where you'd hold the arms as the kids were trying to learn to walk?

And then later you regretted it because you taught them how to walk and they were into everything.

I'm guilty of that. But that's what Jesus does for us. He helps us to learn

how to walk. He provides a safe place for us to fall.

If we were to fall, Jesus doesn't start kicking us. Get up, you dumb kid.

Why don't you learn how to walk? That's not what Jesus does.

He picks us up and he says, okay, don't do this again.

Don't step right here again. Here's a better way to walk.

Here's a new way to walk. That's what Jesus does for us.

Aren't you glad you don't get kicked by the Savior just because you mess up?

Hey, he doesn't want you to mess up.

Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins so you wouldn't have to sin again. Thank you.

But there's grace, this word grace, this undeserved favor toward us that we

live and that we walk in and that he wants us to continue in that.

Remember, it's your story. It's a personal story. What has Jesus done for you?

That's why we've been wearing these T-shirts.

Ask me what Jesus has done for me because we want to share our personal story.

That's why some have these blue hoodies on that say the same thing.

We want to share what Jesus has done.

So radical sharing begins with an invitation. Radical sharing is personal,

but radical sharing always points to Jesus.

Always. This is the radical part right here. Again, we think about verse 41.

We have found the Messiah, and then Andrew brought Peter to Jesus.

And then down in verse 45 again with Nathanael and Philip, Philip said,

come and see, because Nathanael says, can anything good come from Nazareth?

And boy, Philip says, why don't you come and check it out? You know,

radical sharing points to Jesus.

You see, the goal of sharing Jesus with others isn't just to have a full house

on Sunday morning. That's kind of like a byproduct, right?

It's the byproduct of you sharing Jesus with others.

Boy, they want to come and they want to join in. They want to be a part of what's

going on here because their lives are changed when they meet Jesus.

The goal isn't church attendance. It's meeting Jesus.

That's what we want. We want people to meet Jesus. Hey, some might meet him here in this sanctuary.

Some might meet Jesus in the aisle over at Albertsons as they're being shared the good news with.

When you pray for other people. Folks, we really need to be pointing people to Jesus.

If there's a time in my life where I'm up here promoting myself and I'm not

preaching Jesus, then there's a problem.

The church board will take care of that problem, but I hope there's never a

problem that way for any of us.

We need to promote Jesus. We need to point people to Jesus.

Here are these early disciples. They're trying to find everyone they could to come and follow Jesus.

Again, John 1.41, we have found the Messiah.

How big and exciting this news was.

The Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament of Scripture, the Messiah that everyone

was looking forward to, the Messiah that other people were trying to imitate

and say, I'm the Messiah.

I'm here to free you from the conquest of whatever conquesting force was there in Jerusalem. them.

Of course, they failed, usually ended up dead, and all that was a false messiah.

But no, these guys say, we found the messiah.

We found him, the one that's been prophesied, the one that the scriptures talk about.

We need to be excited about that still, to be excited about what Jesus Christ

has done in our life, but what's he doing right now and what he is doing.

You see, our role, we can't ever save someone. It's up to God.

But our role is to point people to the one who transforms, to point to the one

who can really change their life. I can't change anybody's life.

I can't. But I could share about Jesus, who's in the business of that,

who can really transform your life.

Who can really change what's deepest down in you that nobody else knows about.

Jesus can change that. I just want to make an introduction. I just want you

to know about Jesus and know the fullness of Him and what He can do in your life.

And so as we wrap it up, I've just got some applications, some action points for you.

First of all, you've seen that the care cycle or the circle of whatever it's

called, I can't remember now, it's almost lunchtime, right? Right.

But I asked you when we started this about a month ago, think about someone

that you know that needs Jesus and write their name in the middle of this little

circle here and then begin to radically pray for them.

Pray that they would find Jesus. Pray that God would open a door for you to

invite them to find Jesus.

Pray that God would give you an opportunity to care for them in some form or some fashion.

I don't want you to stop doing that. This should be part of your daily devotions

is, okay, who needs to know Jesus and what am I doing?

Where am I at in praying for him? Where am I at in caring for him?

Where am I at in sharing with them about who Jesus is?

And so we need to continue that practice. I think it's going to benefit the

whole kingdom of God if we continue in this.

And you don't need to be as formal as to write it down, but just know,

hey, this is a person in my life that I love, that I can't stand to be in heaven without.

And so I want to do all I can to invite them to know who Jesus is.

Secondly, of course, pray for them daily. Commit as you're having your daily

devotions to pray for that person.

It might be a family member. It might be a friend. It might be your neighbor.

It might be that person at work you can't stand and you just know if they meet

Jesus, boy, their life will be changed and they need to be changed.

And so I'm going to pray for them.

It'd be amazing how many stories there are about God doing something like that.

Maybe if God moves on your heart, you can invite them to church,

invite them to a small group, invite them out to coffee and just say,

hey, I want to share my story with you and then do that. Share your story.

I would do this ahead of time. Everyone should have a story ready.

And the simple story like the blind man. Hey, I was like this,

but now I'm like this because of what Jesus has done.

Just something simple like that. The scripture does tell us for all of us to

be prepared to give an answer for the hope that lies within us.

And I hope that you have an answer for that.

Maybe this morning you're here and you're like, well, what's up with all this

Jesus stuff, man? This guy up here, he likes Jesus a lot. And I'm going to say, yeah, I do.

And I'll tell you why. it's because of this word, an old word that means good

news, but it's called the gospel.

And it's just a simple story of Jesus.

And each letter of gospel stands for something. So, when we think about G in

the word gospel, it stands for God.

We know that God created us to be with him.

That's God's original desire for each and every one of us, is that we as human

beings would be present with him, not just in a church, but for all eternity.

The second one, And O is that our sin separates us from God.

We can see both of these first points in Genesis where God created this beautiful

garden for all of humanity to live in, to be fruitful and to multiply and to subdue the earth.

And then the tempter came in.

Tempted Eve to sin. Adam followed in that sin, and it provided a curse for all

of creation everywhere.

And that made a big separation between us and God.

If you consider the biggest wall that could ever be built came between us and

God because of our sins, because of those things that we decided we need to do.

I think if I say sin, you know what I'm talking about, because it's sins.

They can't be removed. We think about the S.

Sins can't be removed by anything that you can do.

Even the best thing that you could ever do, it can't get rid of your sin problem.

This is the start of the gospel. It doesn't start with very good news, does it?

Hey, Rich, you're a sinner and you're going to be separated from God.

That's not good news to start, is it? No, so it's got to get better, right?

And it does get better because Jesus paid the price for our sin.

God himself, the Son of God, came to earth to be born as a baby.

We celebrate that here in the next month or so.

He grew up, and when it was time, when he was about 30, he began his ministry,

and then about the age of 33, he was crucified for your sin and for my sin.

He paid the price for our sins. he died, but he didn't stay dead.

He rose again on that third day from the grave, being victorious over your sin

and my sin, being victorious over death.

He paid the price. Woo!

Love that. Have you ever had anyone ahead of you in coffee or even at the restaurant

or even at the store, they paid for your groceries or your coffee or your whatever

the third thing I just said was,

I smelled a little bit of chili wafting this way, and it distracted me for a minute.

Oh, it's good to have your way paid. Jesus did that for all of us.

He paid the price for your sin and for my sin.

Not only that, he made a way for us to be victorious over that.

And so that's what the E stands for. Everyone who trusts in Jesus alone has eternal life.

You trust and you place your faith that what Jesus did was good enough for me.

That what Jesus did by dying on the cross, going into the grave and then rising

again, victorious over sin and death, that that took care of my sin problem.

And when I agree with God that I'm a sinner, when I confess that,

when I say, Jesus, I need you, I need you to save me, that he hears that when

you trust in him, that he's taking care of your sin problem.

Boy, you can be saved and you will be saved.

And that goes to the L. Life with Jesus starts now and it lasts forever.

Maybe you're here this morning like, man, my life stinks.

Well, are you living your life with Christ and in Christ?

Doesn't mean you're perfect or your life's perfect. Remember,

we still live in a broken world that cries out for a renewal,

that cries out for redemption.

But I just have to ask you, are you really trusting Christ in all of your life?

Not just your churchy life, but when you go home, when you go to work,

after work on a Monday, are you still trusting Jesus?

Trusting Him for that salvation, trusting Him to live in a way that just,

boy, you're living in the abundance that Jesus promised.

In John 10.10, when Jesus said, the thief comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy.

But I have come, Jesus said, to give you life and to give it to you most abundantly or in its fullness.

To really live is to have your faith in Christ, to trust him through the ups

and downs that we do experience.

So are you trusting him this morning? This morning, if you're not,

we're going to sing a closing song in just a minute or two.

And I want you to make that choice to follow Jesus. I want you to make that

decision to say, I want to follow Jesus.

I want to have my faith. I want Jesus to forgive me of all my sins.

And I want to start following him like these disciples followed Jesus.

Jesus said, come and see. And they went and they saw. and it changed their life.

Jesus can do that for you too.

Christians, you're here this morning. You know Jesus. Jesus has forgiven your

sin, but what's the next step that you're taking?

You know, it's not meant, the Christian life is not meant to be just some mundane

kind of thing where, okay, I got to go to church Sunday. I got to go to church Wednesday.

I got to do this and do that. And no, it's not about I have to, it's I get to.

Well, I'm freed up, remember? I'm freed up to follow. So what's your next step in following Jesus?

Maybe your Bible study, it's just become routine and rote and it's just stale.

Maybe your next step is to say, okay, how can I really see what God wants to

do in my life and take a next step that, boy, it makes the word alive to me again.

I always say, if your Bible study is getting stale and everything else seems

to be marking up, grab a different translation of the Bible.

It just changes the wording a little bit. It gives you a different perspective on things.

Now, I'm not saying you have to give up your favorite translation,

but just try a little different. Here's what I do.

I do that same thing, but I get a whole new Bible because then I can make notes on the new one.

The last new Bible I got was Pastor Appreciation Sunday two or three years ago,

but that was just a new energizing thing within me.

It's this big blue one that I carry because it's got wide margins,

larger text so I can really see it.

And I can make new notes in a new Bible, get a fresh perspective.

So I don't know what the new step is that God wants you to take.

Maybe it's something we've already said today. Maybe it's your new step is helping

out in the nursery, helping out with our youth ministry, helping out with the pastor to do something.

Or maybe you see a need in your community and no one else is meeting it,

but God's putting it on your heart to say, I need to get some people together

to go do something about that.

Whatever that next step is, would you be willing to at least to consider taking it?

And maybe if today's the day, take that next step, that one step of faith that

might open a whole new adventure in your life today.

I want to invite the praise team to come. And as they come, let me pray with you.

We'll sing this song. If you'd like to come down, I'm just going to be down here.

If you'd like me to pray with you even this morning to receive Christ or to

help you take that next step, I'll be here and I'll be willing to pray with you.

Father, in name of Jesus, thank you for this beautiful day. Lord,

beautiful because of all these beautiful people that you have gathered together.

God, I'm just so grateful for each and every one of them.

Thank you, Lord. I'm thanking you, God, for those that we haven't seen in a

while that have been out working hard in the harvest or just their other jobs.

And God, you brought them together today. And so, Lord, be glorified, we pray.

Lord, help us to share you, to share your son Jesus with others.

God, help us to radically do that. Not in a way that's abusive or offensive,

but in a way that's authentic because we actually love the people that we want

to share your son Jesus with.

And so, Lord, speak to hearts, I pray, this morning as we sing this final song.

And it's in the mighty name of Jesus we ask this. Amen.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons, and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.