Who's Your One? | Pastor Chris Kouba

I am a golfer.

Any other golfers in the room?

Would you raise your hands?

Any golfers?

Uh raise your hands.

You're a golfer.

All right.

Uh, if you've watched me play golf, you might not call me a golfer, but I would call myself uh a golfer.

I love golf.

I love thinking about golf.

I love talking about golf.

I love watching golf.

I love playing golf.

Uh, and my algorithm online would suggest that I spend an inordinate amount of time watching videos about golf and training aids and all of those types of things all seem to pop up and seem like I'm a candidate for them to be able to buy those types of things.

I I do love the game.

And uh recently, a couple of weeks ago, I got invited to go on a trip uh where I got to kind of kind of one of those golf trips, right?

Basically, if we got ourselves there, there's a bunch of pastors, then they were gonna take us and play at these really nice courses and stuff like that.

And so I was super up for that.

I've been looking forward to it for quite a while uh from when I signed up for it.

Just, I mean, I've been just kind of thinking through all of it, just kind of visualizing the shots that I don't have in my bag, that you know, just trying to think through what this whole thing can look like.

And I'm, you know, whenever you go on a trip like that, you know, it's important that you you approach it in a certain way because uh I don't have the driving ability of Bryson DeChambeau.

For those of you who don't know, Bryson DeChambeau is a really good golfer, and he's a really good, uh he's he's got an incredible drive, one of the best on the tour.

On the other side, I also don't have the consistency of the iron play as Scotty Scheffler, number one golfer in the world.

He's just amazing.

I mean, they can dial it in, he knows exactly the number and knows exactly the yard, all the kind of stuff just to get it exactly where you're supposed to be.

I don't have the short game of Roy McElroy or Phil Mickelson.

I can't just get the ball close, but let me tell you what I can do.

I can look like them when I walk out on the golf course, all right?

And at the end of the day, the key, if you're an amateur golfer to a golf trip, is you gotta look good, which means you feel good.

And if you feel good, there's just a chance you might play good, all right?

And you want to walk in knowing that that is the case.

I mean, I got all the gear, I got all the look, I got all the stuff.

I mean, I look like I could walk onto the PGA tour right then and there.

I mean, it just had everything down.

But one of the things that I also always do whenever I go play a really nice course is I always have two golf balls in my pocket.

That's not because I'm hitting two balls off the tee, and then I decide which one's better, and then I go and play that.

I'm not doing that, but I have two different kinds of golf balls, and it all depends on how I'm feeling and how I'm doing as to which one of those golf balls that I will use.

If you're an amateur golfer, maybe you can relate to what I'm about to describe.

The first hole that we went to, we walked up there onto the T-box.

We had caddies.

Like, this is like legit golf, right?

You know, like I don't know what they're gonna say to me that's gonna make any difference for the swing that I've got, but I'm still acting like, oh yeah, okay, well, uh, you know, kind of hit it over here, whatever.

And they said, okay, first hole, here's the situation.

You've got trouble on the left.

On the left side of the fairway, you got trees, okay?

And it's really heavy back there.

You're not gonna be able to get and find your ball much.

It's gonna be tough, all right?

On the right side, you've got big rough.

We're not talking about like just basic rough.

We're talking about like deep rough.

Like you hit it in there, you pretty much got to step on the ball in order to find it because it's just gonna be gone whenever it goes in there.

So they said, first T, what you gotta do is you gotta hit a really good T shot, first hole in this really small landing area, and that's basically how you go and play this hole.

Well, of course, you're with all these pastor buddies who none of them can play golf any more than I can play golf because we're all trying to grow a church, right?

And so therefore, I'm leading the church, and so I can't play golf.

So I'm walking up there and I know that I've got some inconsistencies with my game, although my look suggested I was dialed in, all right?

But my swing suggested on the range, uh, you haven't played in a while, right?

And so I walk up there and I grab both of those balls out of my pocket, and I made a decision.

I grab what I would call the water ball.

You know what a water ball is?

Water ball is a ball that basically is scuffed up typically.

It's usually hit the cart path at some point along the way.

It's a ball that is kind of like not very expensive, it's not very nice.

It's a brand you may or may not have ever even heard of.

It's some, it may have some random weird logo that you found when you found it in the woods one time and it's somebody else's ball.

It's a ball that you basically have zero attachment to and can care less about.

And I put that water ball down, and the reason why it's called a water ball is because if you stand up there on the T and you got trouble on the left and you got trouble on the right, and you got this one little spot to hit it from, I know that if I hit, which most likely is not gonna be the perfect shot, then I'm gonna hit that ball into the woods, which is exactly what I did.

And I'm gonna walk over there to the woods.

I'm gonna give 15, maybe 30 seconds of looking for the ball, and then I'm gonna be like, I'm good.

I'm gonna drop another ball down out of bounds.

Why?

Because it's a water ball.

I don't care about a water ball, I don't really care at all about it.

It's that ball that I'm playing, knowing that there's a likelihood I'm going to lose it, and I'm fine with that.

Now let's just say I'm playing pretty good, kind of dialed in, which I was that day.

I was playing really, really good.

I was actually playing, I had missed a couple, lipped out a couple of birdie putts.

Uh, was just, I mean, I was I was kind of dialed in.

My irons were playing really well.

I was keeping the ball in play, feeling good, keeping the same ball for a while.

And so I walk up there to a par three, pull out my pocket both of those balls, and then my my thought process is if I make this, I want to be able to save the ball from that hole in one, right?

So I go and I pull it out, and I pull out at this point, put it down the pro v1 golf ball.

If you're not a golfer, let me tell you what a pro v1 X actually golf ball is.

It's an expensive golf ball, all right?

It's the number one golf, number one ball in golf.

It's what all the pros use, but it's also reflects that way because it's four dollars a ball, not a sleeve, a ball.

One ball is four to five dollars.

And so therefore, I pull that thing out because at that point I'm confident that I'm gonna be able to go and hit that ball where I want it to go.

Now, let's say the same thing takes place in that first hole, and I walk up and I begin to look and I think I'm gonna do really well here.

I've got this little bitty landing area, but I'm gonna do well.

I pull out my Pro V1 X golf ball, I stick it out, and I hit that ball under the trees.

You know what I'm doing?

I'm not looking for it for 30 to 15 to 30 seconds.

We're four to five minutes in, and I'm like, hey guys, just hang on.

That thing was five bucks, all right?

I've got to look for this ball.

Right?

It's the same thing, the same problem.

One's a water ball I don't care about, and one's super important.

Why?

Because of how much money was spent purchasing it in the first place.

Is it possible?

Every one of you walked in here today with a background, with a history, with some characteristics and some circumstances in the midst of your story.

And the question I want to basically propose is this are you a water ball or are you a pro-v1?

We think about people like that, if you if we're to be honest.

We think about whether you're significant or important enough to where if you got lost, we would go on a search to find you.

If you're super valuable, what are you gonna do?

We're gonna stop at nothing to find you.

But if you're something that's like, well, I mean, it's just a waterball, and we're not gonna spend as much time.

Let me ask a question that may be even more difficult to consider.

Have you ever been treated like a water ball?

You maybe you feel like you're being treated like a water ball right now.

You know people know you.

You know people know about you.

You know that people would be sad if something happened to you, but they wouldn't do it very long.

It's not like it would change the course of their situation.

It's not like gonna stop down everything that they're doing in order to go search for you.

You felt like a water ball before.

What I'm gonna look at is a passage of scripture in Luke chapter 15, and the the point of this passage is to show you what God thinks about you.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

What I want you to see and discover in this is no matter what value you have placed on yourself, because most of us think that our value is tied to how much we can produce and how much we can do.

And what we're gonna see is that God has a different standard of what makes you valuable.

But here's what we're also gonna learn.

There's some massive application and implications for us as a church.

If this is what God thinks about people, then how are we as a church supposed to think about our community?

Here's the main point that I want you to walk away with today from this message the lost are a priority to God.

The lost are a priority to God.

Let's begin reading the setup of this passage in Luke chapter 15, beginning in verse 1.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

It says, Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.

And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

There's two groups of people tax collectors and sinners in one group, Pharisees and scribes in another group.

Let's talk about the groups.

First of all, you've got the tax collectors and sinners.

What a random, amazing group of people to be included together.

These were the social and the spiritual outcast.

The tax collectors were hired by the Roman government in order to collect taxes.

So think about IRS tax agents, but the way that they got paid was not by receiving a salary from the Roman government.

They got their payment by basically charging you more than you owed to the government in order to get their fee.

Meaning this, they essentially were extorting their own neighbors out of money and using the authority of the Roman government to back up their efforts.

You can imagine they were hated.

Like if you knew the tax collector person who was trying to get your money, you wouldn't like them either.

And on top of that, if they were taking extra money for them, you would really not like them.

These are social outcasts, these are people that basically had no worth and no thought in society.

You never wanted to be associated with someone who was a tax collector because they steal from you.

The other group that's included here is the sinners category.

Sinners would be people that are drunks, that are prostitutes, that are thieves, anyone who doesn't conform to the religious traditions of the day.

And so, therefore, you've got a crowd that is not only not well liked, but you're also trying to avoid them both because of their reputation and because of your own personal safety.

Like you don't hang out with sinners.

So this tax collector group and this sinner group, it's not like they're friends, but the situation is no one likes them, and they found themselves both being friends because they found themselves hanging around this guy named Jesus, who just attracted tax collectors and sinners.

It says there that the Pharisees and the scribe, the religious leaders of the day, are watching this go down and they're like, this is not okay.

They don't like it because no one's supposed to hang out with them.

You're gonna be unclean if you do.

But then Jesus comes along and he starts making these outlandish claims like he is the son of God.

He starts speaking as though he is a religious leader in that day as well.

But it doesn't make sense because theologically what he is saying doesn't add up, but then also practically what he's saying doesn't add up because if somebody is the son of God, the last person they would ever be associated with is tax collectors and sinners.

But they're looking at it and they're like, okay, you're not only being friendly to these people, you're actually eating dinner with these people.

Like you're going to meals with these people.

This should not be.

And Jesus begins to teach two different parables, a series of parables, really, in this whole chapter, about this principle.

The lost are a priority to God.

Let's look what it says at the beginning of verse 3.

It says, So he told them this parable.

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.

Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it.

And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.

Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

In both of these parables we see things that are lost.

The first one is the lost sheep, the second one is the lost coin.

Scholars indicate that the coin probably represented about fifty to a hundred dollars today.

In both cases, though, something is lost.

The implication and the pr the principle here is trying to suggest this that anyone who doesn't have a relationship with Jesus, the parable is illustrating here, is considered to be lost.

Now that's kind of hard to hear.

I mean, you're not like walking up to your neighbors being like, hey, lost neighbor, how you doing?

You know, like that's a little weird.

Like the whole idea of being lost is not something that most people would would be like to be said about them.

But the reality of what it says here, though, is that if you don't know Jesus, the Bible doesn't hold back, even though a lot of churches try to, of trying to say different ways of saying it, because we don't want to basically offend you.

The Bible's pretty offensive, it calls you straight up lost.

In fact, listen to what it says.

Romans chapter 8, verse 7 says the unbeliever is hostile to God.

Romans 8:7

Ephesians chapter 2 says that we are objects of wrath, having no hope and without God.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

2 Corinthians 4, 4 says that Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers.

Some of you may be listening to this and being like, well, wait a second.

I don't think that I mean, I'm not perfect, but I don't know if I'm lost.

Like I hadn't murdered anybody, I hadn't stolen anything, I hadn't done anything super serious.

And I would tell you this: here's what the Bible tells us is that you and me and all of us, apart from God, are like sheep wandering away from Him, doing life on our own terms, headed in the wrong direction.

And here's the scary part we don't even realize it.

Like just like a sheep has wandered off into danger, they may not realize that they're actually in danger.

We don't need to debate or question apart from Jesus.

All of us are lost.

This is why the comparison here is one of sheep.

Now, I'm not a farmer, I've never been raised on a farm.

I've never been, I've been to a farm a couple times.

I don't know much about it, but I'm just telling you, I've been around sheep a little bit.

They are dumb animals, all right?

They are not smart, okay?

Uh they they they they wander aimlessly, they don't follow directions, and they will do things that hurt them.

In our house, we call that teenage boys, all right?

Like, what are you doing?

What wall me through your thought process that thought this would be a good idea?

I should do this, right?

It's just like it's so dumb, all right?

Now all of us are like that, okay.

All of us do the very same thing, and there's literally been stories that have been told about sheep that will aimlessly wander off of a cliff to their death because they can't aren't smart enough to see the sheep in front of them what they're leading to.

Okay, they'll they'll they'll wander away from the flock chasing something that looks appealing.

Maybe it's greener grass, maybe it's a curious smell.

Before they know it, they're lost.

They can't find their way back home.

All of a sudden the temperatures drop, the sun goes down, predators come out, and that sheep goes from being in the midst of the flock to all of a sudden immediately becoming something that is helpless.

And if if it needs someone to come and find it, because on its own it will die.

Isaiah chapter 53, verse 6 says this all we like sheep have gone astray.

Isaiah 53:6

We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Another image that he uses here is of a lost coin.

A coin doesn't go looking for its owner or let anyone know that it's lost.

Instead, it is helplessly in the wrong place until someone comes and finds it.

It's important that everyone in this room realizes this important truth.

This description of lostness is true for all of us, apart from Jesus.

In fact, whether you feel lost or not doesn't matter.

You are helplessly and utterly lost because of your sin before a holy God.

One of the things I love about the Bible, one of the things I love about the parables, it doesn't just tell us about the problem, it actually helps give us the solution.

It says, in both cases, there was great effort to begin a search to find what was lost.

Look again at verse 4.

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

This is a literary device called a rhetorical question.

It's not a question that is meant for debate or QA or a pro-con list.

It's a question meant to be like, of course you would.

Of course I would do that.

Like, absolutely.

Like, who wouldn't leave 99 and go after the one?

He skips down to verse 8.

Look what it says.

Or what woman, having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently, is the word, until she finds it.

Now, at first glance, you're kind of wondering, like, what is the big deal here?

Like, what's the one big deal about this one sheep?

Like, this must have been a special sheep here.

It must have been like a sheep with the most wool.

It must have been a sheep that was like the fattest.

It was going to bring about the most amount of income.

Like, this clearly must have been a pro-V1 type of sheep, right?

Like it was must be worth it.

Like that explains why you would leave the 99 and you would go search after the one.

But this is trying to suggest here that this sheep isn't significant because of the sheep.

The sheep is significant because of the owner.

The other one here is this coin.

This coin you think must have been something special because otherwise, why would this woman search diligently?

Picture, tear the house apart, rip all the cushions down, like figure out how to turn the place over to search for this coin.

The other day I was uh it's at the house and I actually found a penny on the floor.

I had been so long since I'd seen a penny, and I was like, you know, I don't even I don't want to carry coins.

I don't ever carry coins anymore.

And so I you know what I did?

I threw it away.

I know, I know what was I thinking, but I didn't even think about it.

You want to know why?

Because it's a penny.

Like I don't It's a penny.

Folks, that's what the majority of us think about people.

Yeah, I mean, uh uh, what do I do with this?

Uh just get rid of it.

This woman saw this as way more than just a penny.

She saw this as so significant that it was worth tearing the house down for.

Here's the principle.

Your worth is not determined by what you've done or what you bring to the table.

Your worth is determined by what the owner paid to get you back.

And for the shepherd, this wasn't just a random sheep, this was his sheep.

This woman, it wasn't just that she was losing a coin.

It was her coin.

This is the picture here of Jesus who was sent on a rescue mission to come and to find that which was lost.

Luke 19, 10 says, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

God did this by sending his own son for us to do what we could never do on our own.

And he offered up his life on his behalf and our behalf.

John 10, verse 10 and 11 says this the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

This is how much God cares about you.

This is how valuable you are to him.

He left heaven, came to earth on a rescue mission to find you, and to he gave up his life in order to do it.

The main difference between Christianity and every other religion is every other religion tells you this is what you've got to do in order to get to God.

Christianity tells you this is what God did for you so that you can be with God.

God pursues you.

God seeks after you.

God searches diligently for the loss.

And when he finds you, he doesn't get on to you, he doesn't scold you for being lost, he doesn't shame you or guilt you or direct you or lecture you.

Look at what happens in verse 5.

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders.

Rejoices.

I find it a missed opportunity to miss a pretty good opportunity for a lecture, in my opinion.

I give a lecture with the best of them.

I go and I I I correct and I'm like, you gotta do this and this and this and tell them all the things they're supposed to do.

What it says here is that the owner just goes and he puts he lifts up this hundred-pound sheep, puts him on his shoulders, and he's just rejoicing.

He's just thrilled that he's there.

He's not scolding him for being lost.

What are you thinking?

Do you know how worried we were?

Do you know what you put us through?

None of that.

Just I'm so glad that you were home.

1 Peter 2, verse 24 and 25 says this.

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds, you have been healed.

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and the overseer of your souls.

It wasn't like you just all of a sudden got enough information and thought, man, I am brilliant, and I'm gonna walk to the shepherd and the overseer of my soul.

Oh no, no, no, no.

Here's what took place: your owner came and found you, picked you up when you couldn't walk yourself, put you on his shoulders, and he walked you in front of the owner, and the owner was thrilled.

You got to have a relationship with him.

Jesus doesn't just find you, he throws a party when he does.

Look at the words in verse 5, verse 6, verse 7, verse 9, verse 10.

It's a version of the word joy or rejoice.

This is meant to be a great emphasis.

You see that many times listed in a few short verses.

What that's trying to show you is this that that which is lost has been found, and there is great rejoicing.

The Bible says there is a party being thrown whenever this takes place.

The shepherd calls his friends, calls his neighbors, and says, Get over here, rejoice with me, for the sheep that I have uh been that is lost has been found.

The woman searching for the coin calls her friends together, the scripture says, and says, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that was lost.

Both cases show us the type of party that is going on in heaven.

Whenever people come into a relationship with him.

What does this mean for us as a church?

The lost are a priority to God.

So the lost should be a priority to me.

The lost are a priority to God.

So the lost should be a priority to me.

We are not a country called for the ninety-nine.

Making sure they're happy.

Giving them their customer satisfaction with their surveys making sure everybody's feeling good.

We instead are supposed to be about the one.

We're not supposed to sit around and talk about how nice our nine coins are and how good we look.

And how great we are.

We're supposed to diligently be searching after the one.

This means that we don't just try once, look at it like it's a water ball, give it a few seconds, and then move on.

This means that we're pro-v1 in this thing and that we're acting like we're gonna do everything in our power to ensure that you have the opportunity to get to know about the hope and the joy and the faith that I have experienced.

Who in your life right now needs to know Jesus?

Who is your one?

That one person that you know that needs to come into a relationship with him, that one person that you know that you've been praying for could be a family member, could be a friend, could be a coworker, could be somebody that's on the soccer team with you, could be somebody that serves in the PTA with you, could be in your golf group.

Who is your one who needs to know Jesus?

They may have attended church before, maybe even this church.

For whatever reason they've fallen out, they've been burned, could life interfere, now they need someone who can pray for them.

Who's reaching out to serve, who invite them to hear about this Jesus who doesn't come with a lecture, but he comes a grace.

Church we're doing something pretty strategic over the next four weeks.

We've heard a lot about it.

It's called At the Movies.

We're gonna be taking God's word and we're gonna be teaching it through the lens of four blockbuster films.

It's gonna look a little different than before.

It's gonna be something that is gonna be super unique.

Um, but we're trying to do everything that we can to make it as easy as possible for you to invite lost friends and neighbors and co-workers to be able to come to church.

Uh, we hope that you are an inviter and an includer all year long.

That's part of our strategy.

It's not solely our strategy, but it is part of our strategy is that we want to ask you to be inviting people to come to church.

And we have seen people come to church in the midst of all of our sermon series and all the things that we have done.

And praise God, we've seen people give their lives to Jesus.

But we do recognize for some of you, this is not a normal thing, that it might be a little more difficult if you're asked to go and invite someone to come to church and you say, Hey, would you come with me?

We're preaching a message on Habak Hab Habak Habakkuk?

Habakuk uh Habakkuk, something like that, right?

I get it.

Like at the end of the day, we had people get saved when we preach about Habakkuk, all right?

I'm not saying you can't get saved in there, but what I am trying to say is that for some of you, that may feel a little bit intimidating because you don't want them asking you questions and you're like, I don't know how to answer that because I'm listening to this message for the first time, like you are, kind of a deal, right?

So, what we wanted to do was provide you an opportunity that you can say, hey, would you come to the movies with me?

We're doing this thing at our church.

We're gonna be showing movies.

Why don't you come and check it out?

They're gonna be like, well, what movie is it?

And you're gonna be like, I don't know.

We've got to go to find out.

Because I'm not telling you, by the way, until you show up, all right?

But you're gonna love them, all right?

You're gonna love them.

And so what I'm asking you to do is to invite someone to come to the movies and to be able to experience this because we wanna see how God can use you to be able to help us reach people that are far from him.

We've been praying about this, we've been strategizing about this, we're gonna try this, and we're hopeful that God will allow us to see an incredible harvest, not just because people hear the gospel, but because you invite your friends to come and experience the gospel.

Here's what I want to ask you to do.

I've got three things for you to do to help us with this at the movie series.

First thing is this, okay?

Come early and make room.

Come early and make room.

Let's talk about what this looks like, okay?

Um We believe this service uh is gonna reach capacity quickly.

And so what we're asking you to do is to consider over the next four weeks to come at our 830 service to go and watch this experience, okay?

Um for some of you, I hope that you're gonna watch that and you're gonna be like, 8:30 is not bad.

This is pretty good.

And you stay at 8 30, okay?

Because we need to continue to figure out how we can relieve the attendance in this service so that we can continue to expand and to be able to go forward.

What I'm asking you to do is not just come at an early an hour, consider that, but I'm asking you to show up on time.

Here's what I want you to know, okay?

Here's how this typically happens, all right?

Is um is is you you guys get here a little late, all right?

And when you show up late, here's what happens, okay?

Is that you're kind of walking in in such a way where it's like the light's already down, or whatever else, it's about to be way worse than it's ever been.

Because you're gonna get here, the whole lobby's gonna look different, and then you're gonna walk into the worship service, and we're basically gonna have a little like like half a song of worship.

It's not gonna be long at all.

We're gonna give you some quick announcements, and then the lights are gonna go down and the movie's gonna start.

And for some of you, you're gonna miss 15 minutes of the movie, all right?

So you don't want to do that.

So I'm asking you to show up and come here early.

Can I ask you, though, to do me a favor, even more so?

Can you show up early and you can can you pray that God pours out his spirit in a big way in this room?

Like, I don't just want you to kind of get here for a seat, I want you to get here for the warfare.

Like, God, would you move today?

Like, would you allow this unique expression of what we're about to do to be able to connect to my one's heart today?

And just pray the room up.

And again, I would tell you, you can do that every week.

But you gotta get here and you gotta get here early.

Second thing I'm gonna ask you to do, okay?

Invite someone specific.

Invite someone specific.

Um, what I'm gonna ask you to do is take your phone out for me really quickly, and I want you just to go and take a look at the uh QR code that's gonna be on the screen.

We've got some resources designed on this website to kind of let you post stuff online, kind of your social media and all that kind of stuff.

It's so important that you do that.

I hope that you follow the church, you're posting the stuff that the church puts out.

Um we've got marketing ads and all the things that you're supposed to do to be able to help reach the community.

That's all perfect and great.

That's all really, really good.

We've got these cards that we've put in your seats.

I hope that you can grab that and hope that you can use that as a way to personally invite someone.

Maybe you go and go up to somebody and maybe you give it to somebody at the at your um today at lunch, whenever you go and tip your waiter generously and hand them an invite card or something like that.

Um, but the statistics show this 81% of people respond to an invitation from church if they just get invited.

81%.

That's a lot.

I just want it to be said about the people of United City that man, all of us took a chance and invited someone.

Look, you might get told no, okay.

Well, sin of the that's in that's not a big deal.

But they also might say yes.

Who's that one person you know that needs to know Jesus?

Who's that one person that you know that's far from him?

Would you just invite him to come and to be a part of this?

And here's what I want to just kind of mention this as well, a little bit added to it, about the coming here, getting early, bringing somebody with you.

Here's the one thing that's always weird about movies.

Whenever you go to a movie, what do you do?

You always fight to sit in the middle.

You know what I'm talking about?

You come to church and you fight to sit on the end.

I don't understand how that works.

I see you.

And you sit in the middle, why?

Because you don't want somebody showing up late to have to step over you to be able to get to their to their seat.

You want to be in the prime seat and sit in the middle.

What I'm asking you to do is show up early, invite someone to come with you, save the seat right there in the middle for them, as opposed to being in a situation where if they don't maybe show up on time or they don't know how it all works with the kids or whatever else, and they kind of walk in a few minutes late and then they have to go, like they can't even find you.

Why?

Because you're you're you're you're not you're the movies, it's dark.

Like, help us out, sit in the middle, and help us to make room for those who are gonna be coming a little bit late.

But invite someone, like, I'm not talking about generic inviting, I'm talking like think about somebody.

Hey, will you come to this this movie experience with me?

Like, will you will you will you please come and sit with me and just see what they say?

In fact, I'm encouraging you to text someone today and follow up with a phone call.

Hey, I want you to come.

Now, here's the main thing we want you to do, number three, is to have a gospel conversation.

Is to have a gospel conversation.

We don't want you to have them come to the movie thing and be like, man, that was cool.

That was awesome, and then that's kind of the end of it.

What we want you to do is to follow up with them and say, hey, you know how the pastor at the very end talked about that whole thing, about that prayer, and how he he prayed that prayer and that kind of thing?

Can I walk you through?

I did that in my life, and I just want to tell you a little bit about that experience.

What you can do is tell them about what your life was like before Jesus.

Tell them what your experience was when you met Jesus for the first time, when it tell them about his death, his burial, his resurrection, and then tell them, man, this is what my life has looked like ever since then.

Have you ever considered that for yourself?

Can I tell you that conversation God could use to change generations right in front of your eyes?

For some of you, you may, I want to encourage you to share the gospel.

One of the ways that I do it most frequently is something called the three circles method.

I want you to take your phones out for me, and I want you all to download this app for me.

If you would please download this app.

This app right here is gonna take you to something called Life on Mission.

And it's basically an app that helps share the gospel with somebody else.

It's got the three circles method and something called the good news, bad news method.

I've used both of them before.

Okay?

The the three circles method is one that that I routinely use right now.

My wife would have told you two years ago, she'd have been terrified if she had to have a conversation with somebody else about sharing the gospel.

She now serves at CareNet Pregnancy Center every single Tuesday as a staff or as a as a client advocate.

When somebody comes into the pregnancy center and they don't have a relationship with the Lord and they're kind of pregnancy, they're they're they're they're abortion-minded, she meets with them and she talks to them about that experience, but she also, in the midst of that conversation, has an opportunity to share the gospel.

And what she does, she showed me how she does it.

She pulls her phone out and she pulls up this app and she uses the app to walk them through the gospel.

You're like, well, I can't memorize all those verses.

The verses are right there on the in the on the phone.

It's literally a step-by-step process to walk them through how they can enter a relationship with the gospel.

And at the end of it, it even invites them hey, is this something you would like to do right now?

And my wife would tell you, someone who is terrified of sharing your faith has done it repeatedly, week after week after week.

And this app has been a guide to help her, and she would tell you she's very confident about sharing your faith, and it's all as a result of putting yourself in an uncomfortable conversation that has led to spiritual fruit.

Folks, what does this look like for you?

We want to encourage you to begin to have a gospel conversation for you to talk to someone who is your one.

Let me plead with you to keep sharing.

Let me plead with you to keep praying, to keep inviting them, to keep treating them like the pro-V ones that they are, because they're worth every effort to bring them home.

Maybe some of you are here today and you realize, you know, I think, I think I'm the lost one.

Maybe I'm the sheep that's wandered off.

Maybe I'm the coin that is missing.

And maybe you're sitting here and you're wondering, I wonder if God really wants me after everything that I've done and everything that I've everywhere I've been and every way that I've failed.

Let me tell you something.

The fact that you're hearing this message is proof right by itself.

That God is searching for you.

He hasn't given up on you, he hasn't moved on.

You're not a water ball to him, you're a treasured son or daughter, and he sent his son Jesus to die on a cross.

And he rose from the dead to look for you and to bring you home.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We can't wait to see you next week for any of our services at 8 30, 10, 11 30, or Espignol at 1 o'clock.