Winning The Lost At Any Cost

Come on, who's excited about Jesus this morning?

Praise the Lord.

Amen.

How many of you guys know that he did it then and he's ready to do it again in your life?

In Jesus' mighty name.

Come on.

I'm excited.

I'm excited to be in the house of the Lord this morning.

Pastor Frank's uh preaching in Walkett today.

And as Ben just said, they just closed on their building, which is absolutely incredible.

I'm thankful for what God's doing there.

I'll tell you what, one of the biggest problems in our Walkett campus for the long time has been space.

They do not have space to uh help uh to help uh with all the people that they have, but this building is going to help tremendously, and more people are gonna be able to be one for Christ through it.

We're excited.

But for those of you guys that don't know me, I'm Joey.

I'm the youth and young adults pastor here at Faith Church.

If you have any youth between 6th and 12th grade, I want to see him on Wednesday night, alright?

I want to see him come out.

We're gonna have a great time together.

Um, we have a great youth group and we have a great young adults group.

Uh we meet at 6.30 on Friday nights, and we have a great time.

So it's so good to see all of you guys today.

Who's excited to be in the house of the Lord?

Come on.

Praise the Lord.

Would you guys go ahead and uh just get your Bible on out?

And if you need a Bible, just go ahead and flag down one of the ushers, and they'll be happy to get that into your hands.

Amen.

Would you guys go ahead and lift your Bible on up as we make our Bible declaration today?

Let's say this at the same time.

Ready?

Go.

This is my Bible.

It is my primary source of spiritual nourishment.

I will read it every day and become all God wants me to be.

My mind will be renewed, my life will be transformed, I will become fully surrendered to Christ.

Therefore, I will hide his word in my heart so I can be all God's destiny to be.

Amen.

You sound great this morning.

Would you stand for the reading of God's word?

Matthew chapter 28, verse 18.

Matthew 28:18

Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, a very famous passage of scripture.

Matthew 28:18

You'll have to excuse me this morning if you see me looking a lot over there, because all of my scriptures are right on that TV right behind you guys.

So uh we we're having some technical issues this morning, but how many of you guys know that it's not about all that stuff?

It's about gathering together as brothers and sisters in the Lord, amen.

Receiving from the word.

Matthew chapter 28, verse 18.

Matthew 28:18

It says, Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Therefore, I've heard people say that when there's a therefore, you should find out what it's there for.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this.

I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Can you say amen?

Amen.

I'm gonna say this before I pray for you.

I just want to give a quick shout out because as I said that we've been having some issues this morning.

I want to give a shout out to every single person working in the sound booth, the camera team, the tech team.

Thank you so much.

You guys are amazing.

Thank you for rolling with everything.

But let's pray.

Father, I thank you for every single person that's here this morning.

I thank you for your word that's about to go out.

I thank you that it does not return to you void.

I thank you, Lord, that this morning there will be a fire to win lost people that will be put on the inside of us.

In Jesus' mighty name.

And everybody said, Amen.

You go out and be seated.

Thank you so much for standing to honor God's word.

Well, this morning, faith church, I have a word that happens to be the name of this series.

I got a word for you this morning.

And this word, I believe, is going to be pivotal in the direction that we are going to head as a church.

I've talked to Pastor Frank.

I've he shared a vision with us of what he wants to do in this church and in this house.

And I believe that this is essential to where God is going to take us next.

And this message this morning, it's going to be about one thing.

This is this is the message this morning.

It's about one thing: winning the lost.

So, with that being said, that's it for this morning, guys.

Thank you so much.

No, I'm just I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

We're going to talk about winning the lost this morning.

And I want to illustrate this idea of winning the lost to you by sharing a quick story with you.

I played baseball my entire life.

That was my entire life was playing baseball.

That was what I wanted to do in my life until God called me.

And I had some wonderful opportunities to pursue that.

But I like this a whole lot better.

Can you say amen?

But uh I was uh playing baseball and we had a home game for my uh travel team, and we I was playing shortstop.

If you guys don't know where shortstop is, that's between second and third base.

And I was playing shortstop, and all of a sudden a fly ball went up into right field.

And again, for my uh people that are not as familiar with baseball, right field, if we're if this is facing home plate right there, right fields, if I want this the pitcher's mountain, that's home plate, right field's over there.

And so I'm you're welcome, Sister Terry.

I heard I heard an okay right there.

And so I'm at shortstop, and this like slicing fly ball like kind of uh starts to go out into the outfield to right field.

And my friend starts to drift, my friend Ben, he's the the right fielder, he starts drifting a little bit to make this catch.

And the ball keeps taking off on him and carrying, and he's like sprinting full speed.

And here's the thing about baseball communication's extremely important in multiple facets in baseball.

But one way that communication is so important is if somebody is going to make a play or a catch, it is the responsibility of the team to communicate whether or not they have space to be able to make the catch, to be able to avoid injury.

And so you would say, you got room, you got room, you got room, or like, or you would just say no, like you just like yell no, no, no, no, no, like a lot so that they knew not to be able to go for it.

Well, my my friend Ben, he's kind of drifting on this slicing fly ball.

And he's running and running.

And now, mind you, the person that's running is not really focused on where they're going.

They're just focused on being able to make the play on the ball.

And so he's running and he's running and he's running, and all of a sudden, as he's running, we can all see that he's on a clear bean uh beeline for a rock that is sticking out of the side of a hill that has a huge point sticking out of it.

And we're all watching this, and I would love to tell you that we all shouted, Ben, you don't have room, you don't have room, but we all just stayed silent.

Nobody said anything.

Nobody said anything for whatever reason.

Maybe everybody else thought that somebody else was gonna say something.

I don't know what the reason was, but even me at shortstop, I'm sitting there, and you guys all know I have a loud voice, you can hear it right now.

I very easily could have yelled something and said something, and he would have stopped.

But no, he kept going and he kept going and he kept going, and then finally he slams chest first right into this pointed rock.

Now, I'm not being dramatic because I'm not a dramatic person.

That's not that's not how I am.

I I'm very like logical about things.

But uh my friend, when he went down, I'll be honest with you, I was not sure if he was going if he was gonna live after that happened.

I wasn't even sure if what had happened had had killed him because the rock was he was running full speed into a pointed rock.

He goes down.

I mean, me and my teammates don't really even know what to think about this, and he's down on the ground, and the ambulances had to come out.

We stopped the game, we were almost done with the game.

We still stopped it.

It was a tie game and all that stuff.

Didn't matter.

Ambulances drive right onto the field because they had to get him in the stretcher, and he suffered uh collapsed lungs, and he fortunately was able to make it out alive, but he had a lot of injuries and he wasn't able to play baseball for the rest of that summer.

He had to recover and all that type of stuff.

But here's the thing this all happened because no one took the responsibility to communicate.

Can I tell you that there is a whole generation right now that is sprinting towards a rock called hell?

And if we don't speak up and say something, they're gonna smack chess first right into that rock of hell.

We have a responsibility to speak up and say something.

We have an even greater responsibility than a baseball team to communicate.

We have a message that we need to communicate and tell people.

And the title of my message this morning is this winning the lost at any cost.

Winning the lost at any cost.

Next week we have Welcome Home Sunday.

Welcome home Sunday is the idea of this event is very simple.

It's winning the lost, it's bringing people to Jesus.

It's people that whether they're not saved or whether they aren't coming to the house of God, they need to get back into the house of God.

Next week is gonna be a week that we're believing that prodigals are gonna come home.

People that have walked away from God are gonna come back to God.

This is what we are looking for in our church.

And guess what?

God has tasked each and every single one of us with a responsibility to speak up and say something in our generation.

And so I want to share a few things with you about this idea of winning the loss at any cost.

The first thing I want you to understand is that the mission belongs to every believer.

The mission belongs to every believer.

The key word in that sentence is every.

I read to you the scripture in Matthew 28, and it says Jesus said to go and make disciples.

To go and make disciples.

Jesus made this instruction clear, but I want what I want you to understand is that in order for someone to become a disciple, they must first become a convert.

A lot of churches will say, we don't want just converts, we want disciples.

And I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Jesus did not just teach for somebody to have a moment of conversion and to not actually become a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

We believe in discipleship.

In fact, we have Wednesday night Bible study where we do that.

We have uh we have courses that we offer people to be able to learn more about their faith.

We believe in discipleship, but without conversion, there is no discipleship.

Without somebody making a decision to be able to follow Jesus, they cannot be discipled.

And so we have a task to do what?

To win people to Jesus Christ so that then the church can disciple them.

We must be a church that makes disciples and that begins with conversion, that begins with winning people to Jesus Christ.

But one thing I love is that this command that Jesus is given is given is not limited to pastors, it's not limited to evangelists, it's not limited to, you know, the more spiritually mature believer.

A lot of people think that it's just the spiritually mature, it's just the people that are good with their words, it's just the people that know what they're talking about.

But can I tell you this?

There was a woman in the Bible that met Jesus at a well, and she didn't know much about anything at all.

In fact, she didn't even have a good understanding.

Jesus had to correct her about some things.

And guess what?

She had one encounter with Jesus, and she went and told the town her testimony, and the whole town came and heard Jesus.

What if I told you you don't need to know everything?

Your testimony has the power to be able to win someone to Christ.

It's not about knowing everything, it's not about being the most spiritually mature person out there.

Yes, we should aspire to grow, and yes, we should aspire to be great disciples of Jesus Christ.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But we must not forget the mission that has been tasked to us.

This isn't just for pastors, it isn't just for evangelists, it's for every believer.

The Bible says this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20.

2 Corinthians 5:20

I love this scripture.

It's a part of one of my favorite passages of scripture in 2 Corinthians 5, 17 through 21.

But I'm gonna read you verse 20.

It says, so we are Christ's ambassadors.

I want you to say that word, say ambassadors.

God is making his appeal through us.

We speak for Christ when we plead.

Come back to God.

Now, some of you may not understand what an ambassador is, or maybe you have some level of understanding, and if you would just indulge me for a moment, an ambassador is a very important title that God gives to every believer.

Every believer.

This, if you are in here and you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are an ambassador of Jesus Christ.

Let me help you understand what that means.

Let's say that, for example, I'm American.

I know a lot of in America we like to say our heritage of where our family's from.

But if you were born here, you're American.

That's your that's what you are.

And so I'm American.

And if I decided to become an ambassador for the United States, they would send me to a country, let's say Spain.

And I go to Spain, but I don't go to Spain to become Spanish.

I go to Spain to represent the interest of America in Spain.

I go to Spain and I remain American, but I live in Spain.

This is exactly what God calls us to do.

To be in this world, but to not be of this world.

To be living in this place, but guess what?

To be a citizen of the kingdom of God.

God has called us to be ambassadors.

What am I doing here on earth?

I am representing the interests of the kingdom of heaven here on this earth.

I'm going and I'm promoting the kingdom of God.

God is making his appeal through you, and he's making his appeal through me.

He's looking at you.

And what if I what if I told you this?

What if I said some people's opinion on Christianity will be entirely shaped on the way that you live, on the way that you talk, on the way that you walk.

Now, some of you may be thinking, well, that's not fair.

Well, the reality is, is yeah, we understand that that's not necessarily fair.

We understand that sometimes people may fall short and all of those things.

But the reality is that people are watching everything that we do.

As people that call ourselves followers of Christ, we have to be mindful of our ambassadorship of Jesus Christ.

I want to represent him well in the way that I live, but I also want to do my part in actively representing, accurate, uh making a point to make sure to say, you know what?

I want to make sure I communicate the interest of the kingdom of heaven here on this earth.

How do I do that?

I've sharing the gospel, inviting people to church, making it clear where I stand on things, reaching out to people that are hurting.

We have to understand our communities have people that are hurting, our communities have people that are in need of Christ, and we can't just stay silent as ambassadors of this kingdom.

God's making his appeal through us.

It's up to us.

We need to say something.

We need to step up.

We have a responsibility by the power of the Spirit of God to reconcile people to Jesus Christ.

We're not waiting for God to send somebody.

We are the somebody.

God, would you send somebody?

And God's looking at you and He's saying, How about you?

Second thing I want you to understand, I want to encourage you with this.

The Spirit of God has made you a capable witness.

The Spirit of God has made you a capable witness.

I want you to do this for with me for a second.

I want you to point to yourself.

I want you to say me.

That's right, I'm talking about you.

God has made you a capable witness.

Well.

Can I get in your business for a second?

The minute I announced the title of this message, I already know there were some people.

Well, not me.

Because you know, I just got this going on and stuff.

And I'm gonna address that later on, so you guys can just you guys can just sit in that for a moment.

But the Spirit of God's made you a capable witness.

The Bible says this in Matthew chapter 9, verse 35.

Matthew 9:35

I love this scripture.

And Jesus says that he traveled through all the towns and villages of that area teaching in the synagogues and announcing the good news about the kingdom.

And he healed every kind of disease and illness.

How many of you guys know that that's not just something that God did then, but that's something that God does now?

Amen.

Because he cannot deny who he is.

Amen.

Healing's not something God just does, healing is something that God is.

There's a difference.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

What if I told you our motivation to win the loss is not just to have a bigger church, but it's because we have compassion upon people who are lost and confused in a generation right now.

This generation's been told all sorts of lies, all sorts of things that are not true about themselves, about their identity.

They've been told that things just have to be always the way that they are.

There's a generation that is lost in searching for answers.

But can I tell you this right now, and this will encourage you so much.

Did you know that this generation is coming to church more than any other generation has come have come to church before in the past?

There is a hunger for the things of God.

God is drawing people back to real church, not commercialized church, but a place where people can really encounter the presence of the living God.

Can you say amen?

I could say a lot more to that, but let's keep going.

He said to his disciples, The harvest is great, but the workers are few.

So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest.

Ask him to send more workers into his fields.

Now, I want to explain it to you like this.

A lot of people, when they preach this, they'll emphasize the part that the laborers are few.

And they'll forget about the far about the part that the harvest is plentiful.

Think about it like this.

If it's it's about to be apple picking season here in in uh New England, right?

We we have our apple orchards and all that type of stuff.

Now I'll tell you this right now.

I don't care about no apple picking, okay?

The the listen, for me, football season is starting next week.

Okay, that's that's what I'm worried about right now.

You know, my wife, you know, she's like, come on, let's go apple picking.

I'm like, all right, let's go apple picking, you know, and you know, and I mean let's let's do it.

Um with a smile on my face.

With a smile on my face.

You can pray for me after service.

No, I'm just kidding.

But see, if you go to an apple orchard, there's a lot of apples that are ripe for the picking.

It's apple season.

They're ready to be picked off that tree.

But here's the problem: there's not enough people to pick those apples.

And so what happens?

Those apples, they fall to the ground, then you go and you're on the apple orchard and you look on the ground, you're like, that's disgusting.

I don't know what that thing is.

It's like I think I'm all set with apples today, you know, after I saw that.

But what happened?

There was no laborer to be able to pick that apple.

In the same way, there's an entire generation of people that are so excited to come to Jesus.

The harvest is plentiful, but the problem is there's not enough labors to pick off of that tree.

We need to be laborers, we need to send more people, we need to be ready to pick as many people as we possibly can because the harvest is indeed plentiful.

There are people out there that are ready to come to God.

Oh, people don't want to come to God anymore.

That's not what the Bible says.

The Bible says the harvest is plentiful.

People have this idea that it's the biggest burden to ask someone to come to church.

And here's how they sell church to people, or here's how they even sell Jesus to people, because the reality is that we want people to come to Jesus, and of course, that is coming to church too.

But they sell, all right, well, I hope it's not too big of an inconvenience in your life, but if you have some time on, I promise you it won't be too long.

We won't be there for that long.

I promise you, he'll say some nice things and stuff like that, and and everything like that.

Don't worry about it.

I sometimes I know, but Pastor Frank can just go a little bit long and stuff like that.

And don't even get me started on his son.

But listen, I I just need to tell you, it'll be okay.

You'll meet some nice people, and like, you know, maybe you can come with me.

And you know what?

If someone gave me that invitation, you know what I would do?

Decline.

It sounds like you don't even want to be at church on Sunday.

Why do why do I want to go to church on Sunday?

But see, the problem is that we are presenting a form of Christianity that is not in the Bible.

Rather than saying to somebody, hey, come to church with me on Sunday, I think you'd really enjoy it.

I'm telling you what, God's changed my life, and I believe that He can change your life as well.

See, that's an invitation to tell somebody to come to Jesus.

There's a harvest, it's ripe for the picking, it's ready to just like those apples, it's ready to be able to be picked.

And Jesus said to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers.

But I'm not gonna pray something that I'm not willing to be an answer to.

What if I told you that you can be an answer to your own prayers?

Lord, I pray that you'd send laborers into the harvest, and God's saying, Are you a laborer?

Are you a laborer?

Are you somebody that is willing to do it?

We should pray that the Lord would send more laborers, but I'm not going to pray that God would send more people into the harvest fields.

I'm not going to pray that if I'm not willing to be a harvest, uh harvester myself.

If I'm not willing to be a laborer, I'm not willing to pray that I'm going to be an answer to my own prayers.

I'm going to go out.

And as the scripture says, I'm going to go into the highways, I'm going to go into the byways, and I'm going to compel them that the house of God may be full.

We have a responsibility.

But there's someone thinking in here, maybe.

If only Jesus was here.

If Jesus was here, it would just be alright.

And I just wish that Jesus was here because then everybody would just get saved.

And we almost have this lazy idea in Christianity that let's just put it all on God.

But what if I told you that Jesus said something very interesting along the lines of it would be better if he was here?

John 16, verse 7.

John 16:7

It says, but in fact, it is best for you that I go away.

Because if I don't, the advocate won't come.

If I do go away, then I will send him to you.

You know that Jesus didn't say, it would be better if I just set stayed.

He said, it'd be better if I went.

Why?

It is better that he go now, because now instead of just there being one physical location, now there are believers that are empowered by the Spirit all around the world.

Let me help you understand.

Jesus is and was a hundred percent God, and he was and is a hundred percent man.

That's that's uh what he is.

And so what I want you to see in this is that Jesus, as a man, that made a decision, as the scriptures say, to empty himself and take on the form of a human being.

As a man, he was limited to one place.

He was in one place at one time.

But now there are believers that are empowered by his spirit that are all around the world in every confidence, in every every state, in every region.

Now we all carry the spirit of Christ.

Well, is Jesus still working?

Oh, yeah, and he's working in you, and he's working through you.

The spirit of Jesus Christ is not dead, he's still active and he's working in the lives of every single one who believes.

Can you say amen?

He's working in you.

Say he's working in me.

Yeah, he's made you a capable witness.

I can't do it.

Yes, you can, because the spirit in you is greater than the spirit that's in this world.

The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is on the inside of you.

Yes, you can.

Don't say you can't do it.

You can do it.

Why?

Not by power nor by might, but by his spirit in Jesus' name.

Third thing I want you to know, and this is where I'm gonna revisit that idea that I said I was gonna revisit earlier.

God is greater than your than every excuse.

I thought about making the point.

God is greater than your excuses.

But I thought that was a little bit too aggressive, so I decided that.

Somebody said, be it be aggressive.

Trust me, I am sometimes.

Somebody be aggressive, just wait till the end of the sermon.

Uh God is greater than every excuse.

Let me speak to you about this for a second.

Exodus chapter 3, verse 7.

Exodus 3:7

It says, Then the Lord told him, Who's he talking to?

He's talking to a guy named Moses, that I'm sure many of you are familiar with.

I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt.

I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers.

Yes, I'm aware of their suffering.

Verse 8.

So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt.

Verse 9.

Look, the cry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abused them.

Watch this, verse 10.

Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh.

You must lead my people, Israel, out of Egypt.

Why do I read that scripture to you?

God saw that there was a generation of people that were oppressed.

Guess what?

There's a generation of people that are oppressed today as well.

There's a generation of people that are under a lot of oppression.

And see, when God looks to do something in the earth, I find it interesting that the scripture doesn't say that God just decided to come down and fix it himself, or God just decided to do something.

He said, I'm sending you.

You know why?

Because when God looks to do something in the earth, he looks to do it through a man or through a woman.

Let me help you understand this.

People will say, Well, what about Jesus though?

You just proved the point.

Jesus had to become a man for a lot of reasons.

But because when God looks to do something, he looks to do it through a man or through a woman.

When God wants to accomplish his purposes in the earth, he's not just like, you know what, I'm just gonna do it.

He's like, let me find somebody that's willing to do it.

This is the way that God has chosen to operate.

It's not that he's limited or powerless by us or anything like that.

People get mad at that.

Oh, I can't believe that he said that.

That's heresy.

God can do whatever he wants to do.

Yes, God can do whatever he wants to do.

And because he can do whatever he wants to do, he's chosen to operate by using you and me.

That's the way that he's chosen to be able to do things in the earth.

And so God is not, God is not looking at himself, he's looking at you.

He's like, Will you let me use you?

Will you let me use you?

Will you let him use you?

Well, God said that Moses was the guy.

Let's see what Moses said.

But Moses pleaded with the Lord, oh Lord, I'm not very good with words.

I never have been, and I'm not now.

Even though you have spoken to me, I get tongue-tied and my words get tangled.

I'm just gonna stop right here for a second.

This is some of us.

We hear about this.

Well, Pastor Joey, yes, win the loss at any cost, but not me.

Yeah, yes, yes, you know, like we need to win people, but see, I just can't really do that because you have to understand I'm just not the best with my words, and I'm just not the best in talking to people about this type of stuff.

And so I just more like to let my actions do the talking and all that type of stuff, and I just don't really invite people to church, and I just have a lot going on and all that type of stuff.

But but here's the thing let's look at what God says to Moses.

Verse 11.

He says to Moses, who makes a person's mouth?

Who makes a person's mouth?

God is greater than every excuse.

God said what he said.

It wasn't like maybe there was a misunderstanding.

Oh no.

He said that we are to go and to make disciples.

He he said you'll receive power when the spirit comes upon you.

What?

To be my witnesses.

He wasn't just talking to 12 disciples then.

He was talking to every believer that would receive his spirit.

And if God has ordained it, and if God has said it, then God will empower it to be used.

If God has said it, then it is true.

If God has said it, then he's empowered you.

He'll give you the means to be able to accomplish it.

Who makes a person's mouth?

Who makes a person's mouth?

I'm not the best of my words.

Some of y'all, maybe that was even what you thought immediately.

You went right to an excuse.

I can't do it because of this.

I can't do it because of that.

But I say this not to condemn you, I say this to encourage you.

God's greater than every excuse.

No matter what you could come up with, God is greater than that thing.

I found that some of the people that God uses the greatest are some of the most unimpressive individuals when you talk to them.

They're not maybe the most intelligent, maybe they're not the most personable, maybe they have shortcomings in different areas and things of that nature, and God uses them in a powerful way.

Why?

Because the scripture says that God uses the foolish things of this world to confound those who think they are wise.

God uses those types of things.

Oh man, I'm just I'm not perfect.

I'm not perfect, you know.

I'm not, I'm not there in my faith yet.

I'm not, you know, I just, you know, I you don't know what I did the other day and all that type of stuff.

And what if I told you this is that God is not looking to just use perfect people.

God's looking to use willing people.

God's not necessarily looking for perfect people, he's looking for willing people.

There is a difference.

God, yes, we should strive for perfection as believers.

Yes, we should strive to please God in everything that we do.

But I'll tell you this: if you fall short of that standard, that doesn't mean it's over for you.

That doesn't mean that God can't use you.

God can still use you.

Moses in the Bible, he had committed murder, but guess what?

God still used him to reach his generation.

I don't know what you've done, but I'll tell you this: it's not beyond what the grace of God can do in you.

God can still change you, God can still use you.

It's not over for you.

It's not, I I can't.

I just can't, you know, I'm not, you know, blah, blah, blah.

I would love to tell you this that Moses just stopped right there, too.

God said, Who makes a person's mouth?

Okay, all right, all right.

Moses, you know, just calm down.

But I would love to tell you that.

But he goes through a whole chapter of excuses.

Just yapping about all these different excuses.

My students will like that.

Just yapping about all these different excuses.

Well, well, well.

Stop with your well, stop with your excuse.

God doesn't want to hear our excuses because he is greater than every excuse that we could possibly offer.

God is greater than our excuses.

Let me ask you a question.

If it's not you, then who?

I could tell you this that all my teammates thought it was gonna be somebody else.

Oh, maybe the center fielder will say something.

Maybe the first baseman will say something.

Maybe the second baseman will say something.

You know what happens when no one speaks up and a fly ball goes up in baseball?

The ball drops.

I'm not gonna let the ball drop in my generation.

I'm gonna speak up and say something.

I'm gonna take responsibility with everything that I have.

Let it be said of me as it was said of David, that after he served his generation, he died and was buried with his fathers.

That's what I want to be said about me.

Well, Joey, you're a preacher, but see, we're not understanding the message still, because it's not about being a preacher, it's about being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

And disciples make other disciples.

Go and make disciples.

Go and make disciples.

God has called each and every single one of us to be a witness for him.

Every single one of us.

And if he's called you, he's faithful to equip you to do it.

God is greater than every excuse.

Worship team, you can make your way up.

Now, this is where the message kind of takes a turn.

So far, I've talked to you about the fact that we should win souls for Jesus.

I've talked about the fact that God's commissioned us.

I've talked about the fact that he's empowered you by his spirit to be a witness.

I hope right now you're feeling encouraged that God can use me.

Amen.

But the thing I want you to get now is this number four.

Eternity is too real for passive Christianity.

Eternity is too real for passive Christianity.

We need some Christians of action to come back to the church.

I'll say it again just for my students.

A lot of yappery.

A lot of people can say stuff.

Let me let me read this to you from the Bible.

Matthew chapter 26, verse 33.

Matthew 26:33

Here's what Peter said.

Peter declared, even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.

We all know how that went.

And then Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, Peter, this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times that you even own me.

But then verse 36.

That's alright, I'll just tell you.

It says, all the other disciples agreed.

Peter said, No, Lord, even if we have to die with you, we'll die with you.

But all the other disciples agreed with him.

Here's why I wanted to say that.

I feel a little bad for Peter sometimes.

Everybody's like, man, Peter, he's had a lot to say.

Yes, Peter had a lot to say.

But oftentimes Peter would say things that the other disciples agreed with, but he was the only one with the guts to be able to say it.

And so, but I want to I want you to see something.

I'm sure that the disciples had good intentions when they said this.

I'm sure that like I can imagine this.

The Bible actually seems to suggest to us that John was like a younger, was like a younger guy.

He was like maybe like 18 to 20, most people think, or something like that.

And he makes a very clear point of saying that he outran Peter to the tomb and all that stuff.

But I could see it like this.

Peter's like, no, Jesus, that's not true.

He's like, even if we gotta die with you, we're gonna die with you.

And John's like, yeah, you got that right.

He's like, let's go.

Yeah.

And everybody's like, he says, yeah.

And they're like, yeah.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, no, no, yeah, that's us.

That's us.

Yeah, yeah.

You tell him, Peter.

You tell him, we're gonna stay with you.

But then verse 56 comes along.

But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the scriptures.

At that point, all the disciples deserted him and fled.

Can I tell you this?

Sincere intentions without action is not enough.

I think of a parable in the Bible about two brothers.

The father wants both brothers to go work in the field.

And the first brother says, I'll go into the field, but then he doesn't go.

The second brother says, I'm not gonna go into the field, and then he goes.

And he says, Which one obeyed the command of the father?

It wasn't the one with sincere intentions, it was the one that took action.

There's a lot of people that have a lot of talk about things that they have to say.

There's a lot of Christians that I like to call them Chihuahua Christians.

Some of you guys, I I I kind of saw some sour faces.

Some people have a chihuahua.

I'm glad you love your chihuahua.

Somebody said it.

I don't need to say it.

I'm glad you love your chihuahua.

That's that's wonderful.

Um you it's your dog.

You can you you you can you you can you can love it.

Anyway, I don't really like chihuahuas.

They're like yippee dogs.

They start, they they they see it and they start like barking at you like they're gonna tear your your limbs off.

And then you go like this.

And you know they don't step right back.

You know why?

They're all bark no bite.

That's a lot of Christians.

We're gonna we're gonna win people for Jesus.

We're gonna see our community saved.

They sound real tough too when they talk about it.

Like, oh yeah.

And even the church gets all pumped up.

Everybody's on their feet.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's do this thing.

Yeah, this is this is good.

And see, I'm not questioning intentions because that's not for me to say.

I would say that many people have good intentions when they say that from a pulpit.

But the question becomes when are we gonna stop talking and start doing?

When does the talk stop?

We're gonna see people one for Jesus Christ.

I told our youth group that.

We're gonna see, we're gonna see our area one for Jesus Christ.

But we didn't just talk about it.

We did events to be able to see people saved.

We started Bible clubs in the schools to see people saved.

We're doing something about it, and we're still doing something about it.

It's not just all talk.

The kingdom of God is not just all talk.

There's a the Bible doesn't say be a talker of the word, it says to be a doer of the word.

I don't want to just talk, run my mouth like a little chihuahua, think that I'm something.

No, I want to be someone that does what Jesus says to do.

What are we gonna do?

What are we gonna do?

I want to hit you with a very sobering reality and worship team.

You can begin to play whenever a sobering reality.

Luke chapter 16 is a sobering reality.

Luke 16 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read you this entire text, verses six uh verses uh 19 through 28, and I'm gonna emphasize one part I want you to get.

It says, Jesus said there was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen, who lived a who lived each day in luxury.

Verse 20 at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores.

As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.

Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit before Abraham at the heavenly banquet.

The rich man also died and was buried.

And he went to the place of the dead, that's hell.

There in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.

The rich man shouted, Father Abraham, have pity.

Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.

I am in anguish in these flames.

But Abraham said to him, Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had Lazarus had nothing.

So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish.

Verse 26.

And besides, there's a great chasm separating us.

No one can cross over to us from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.

But this is the point that I want to make.

You guys have heard the story, you you get the situation.

Then the rich man said, Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father's home.

For I have five brothers, and I want I want him to warn them so they don't end up in this place of torment.

This scripture gives me pause for concern.

I heard another man of God mention this and it struck me.

This gives me pause for concern as I read this.

Here's my concern.

Here's my fear.

My fear is that there's more concern about people's salvation in hell than there is in the lives of most believers.

I'll let that sink in for a second.

There's more concern about people's salvation in hell than there is in the lives of most believers.

Hell is a real place.

It's not often talked about enough in church.

We we just want to talk about heaven, and heaven's so great, and and heaven's awesome.

And I believe that, but there really is a heaven, but there's also really a hell.

I say this because it's truth.

I say this because of reality.

And let me tell you this: that the Bible says that hell is a place that the fire never goes out and the worm never dies.

It's a terrible place.

You know what?

I'll even go one further.

As bad as you're thinking hell is right now, it's worse.

As bad as the movies might make it out to be, as bad as the thoughts that you've had about it, it's way worse.

It's worse than anything that anybody could ever imagine.

That's the truth.

Hell is a real place.

You know who will go there?

I'm gonna say something that might shock some of you.

You know who's gonna go to hell?

Good people.

Some of you guys are just shocked by that.

Good people, nice people, friendly people, hard workers.

Those are all people that will go to hell.

Because if they don't have one component to them, it doesn't matter how good of a person they are.

Because what's good?

Only God is truly good.

Good is completely subjective to the society that is around us.

We have standards of good of what we say that it is.

Somebody could be a good person, but if they don't know Jesus Christ, then they'll spend eternity in hell.

Oh, we don't we don't like to say that at church and stuff, not at this church.

We preach the Bible at this church.

And I'm not suggesting or saying this to be able to try to shame people or say this to be able because I'm trying to just say it to be mean to people.

Oh no, talking about the reality of hell is one of the most loving things that you can do.

Because I said this, as bad as hell is, it's as bad as you think hell is, it's worse.

But get this as good as you think heaven is, it's better.

And so we have a responsibility, just as the Bible says, God is not willing that anybody should perish, but that everybody come to repentance.

God doesn't want anybody to go to hell.

God doesn't want anybody to go to hell.

That's not his desire.

How do I know that?

For the Bible says that God so loved the world, not that he hated the world, but God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

That's the Bible truth.

Now let me tell you something.

People can go to hell, or people can go to heaven rather, sick.

We believe that God is a healer, but people can still go to heaven sick.

And obviously they won't stay sick there, but you get what I mean.

They'll die, they can die sick and go to heaven.

People can die poor and go to heaven, although we believe that God wants to bless people.

People can die poor and go to heaven.

But people cannot die without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and go to heaven.

It's not possible.

For Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

This is what Jesus said.

Perhaps some of you feel drawn on your heart right now.

And that's because this gospel message has power.

It does something.

People try to tell all these fancy ways to be able to communicate the gospel and all that stuff.

I mean the simple gospel, not just a message.

I mean like the good news of Jesus Christ.

But can I tell you this that the gospel is a very simple message?

That if you say it the way the Bible says it, that it has power to draw people unto Christ.

Right now, people are being last service, I think, we had I think eight people come down to give their life to Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Powerful.

Why do I say that?

I didn't give fancy words.

I didn't go and give a fancy analogy or do all that stuff, and I'm not saying it's wrong to be creative in our preaching, but I was just very simple.

This is the gospel.

And people responded.

It's just too real to be a passive Christian.

I want to end here, and I'm going to give people an opportunity to make Jesus the Lord of their life in just a moment.

I want to end here.

So where do we stand?

What are we going to do?

Are we just going to come to church and clap our hands and get excited and then go, alright, back to my nine to five?

It's most churches in America.

Not saying it's every church.

There's some great churches, some great churches in this area.

But is that what we're going to do?

See, I think we've missed the point of church and sermons and messages.

It's, and I'm not saying this church.

I'm saying I think as a body we can miss this sometimes.

That church is not just a let's all get together and hear a nice message and feel good and pat ourselves on the back and move on with our week until next week.

No.

Church is let's hear the word of the Lord and now how can I live my life differently as a result of it?

Yes, it's the fellowship of believers, that's part of it, but we ought to apply and live our life differently because of a word that we heard from the word of the Lord out of the scriptures.

God's challenging some of us today.

Where do we stand?

What are we gonna do?

Me?

Yes, you.

And guess what?

Me too.

What am I gonna do?

The last thing I want to make very clear, and I'm gonna read one more scripture to you, is uh if we're gonna win the lost at any cost, we need to bring people to Jesus.

The Bible says this in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

It says that Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of these men who heard what John said and then followed Jesus.

Andrew went to find his brother Simon and told him, We have found the Messiah, which means Christ.

Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus.

What happened?

You know what Andrew did?

Andrew went and told his brother and said, You gotta come meet this guy.

Andrew gave an actual invitation to Jesus.

He didn't just say, Hey, uh, there's a guy.

I hope he doesn't bore you too much.

You should come and you should talk to him.

He said, You gotta come, man.

We we we found the Messiah.

We we found the Christ.

You need to come with me right now because this is too serious for you to just stay here.

That Billy Graham was one of the greatest evangelists that the world has ever seen.

Hundreds of thousands, millions and millions of people gave their life to Christ in 1957.

He rented out Times Square and he preached the gospel right in Times Square.

Guess what?

The people of this world couldn't do anything about it.

Guess why?

God had blessed his ministry so much financially that he had more money to spend than any of them did.

And so he went and he rented out the whole thing.

They couldn't stop him.

And guess what?

Blocks and blocks of people, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to hear this guy preach the gospel.

But do you know how it happened?

It didn't happen because Billy Graham is just an awesome preacher, although that's part of it.

It happened because he implemented something called Operation Andrew.

I think you can get the idea of what that is.

Operation Andrew.

He said, just like Andrew, all of you are gonna bring somebody to Jesus.

And so people from all around the country, whenever Billy Graham came to town, they'd Operation Andrew and they'd go and bring somebody to Jesus Christ.

See, this is what it actually looks like to apply this idea of going and making disciples.

This is what it looks like to actually be a soul winner.

Operation Andrew.

We're doing something very similar here next week.

We have an opportunity.

You can't force everyone to come.

In fact, I'll even go one further.

You can't force anyone to come to church.

It's not possible.

You can do your best to invite them, you can give a persuasive invitation to somebody, not manipulative, but persuasive invitation for somebody to come to Jesus.

You absolutely can.

But it's their choice at the end of the day.

But here's what we can do: we can pray, we can invite.

The Bible says this.

The Bible says that when Jesus was lifted up on the cross, he would draw all people unto himself.

Guess what?

Before you even invite them, the Spirit of God is already drawing them.

God is drawing people, He's working on people's hearts.

Your friends that you don't think have any interest in God, He's drawing them.

That person that stopped coming to church, guess what?

God's drawing them.

God's drawing them by his spirit.

And so we're gonna take a moment to pray in just a second.

It's time to win the lost at any cost.

I hope you understand that you're looking at a man, and I don't say this pridefully, I say this because I want you to know that I'm not a hypocrite.

You're looking at a man that is not just preaching these words to you, but I'm doing everything I possibly can to see it happen.

I started a nonprofit called Freedom Gen, where basically we just go and we take money and we send it to wherever the gospel is being preached for outreaches, for high school events, for Bible clubs.

Why'd I start it?

Not so I don't I don't make a salary from it.

I don't get money from it.

It's not for me.

It's because I felt a burden in my heart that there's a generation that desperately needs Jesus.

I don't say that for your applause.

I don't say that so that you'll come up to me after and say, here's some money for your ministry.

I'm not saying it for any of those reasons.

I'm saying it for one reason that we need to practice what we preach.

If we say that we are a Christian, then this is part of it.

If we really believe in the reality of hell, then we'll tell other people about it.

I'll close with this and then we're gonna pray together.

We're gonna take a moment and do this together.

There was a comedian that I saw on Instagram, and I was just scrolling on Instagram, and the guy was not a Christian.

And he's he's cursing up a storm on this video and all that stuff, but I found it intriguing what he said.

He said, You know, I'm not a Christian, but he said, I kind of get the whole Christian thing.

He goes, like, think about it for a second.

He said, if they really believe what they say, if they really believe that anyone that isn't a Christian, that doesn't follow Jesus, is gonna go to hell.

He goes, how much do you have to hate somebody to not tell them?

And then he went on to say, like, if you saw somebody in the middle of a road and an 18-wheeler was coming to flatten them, how much would you have to hate somebody to not warn them that the 18-wheeler is coming?

And I stood there and I went, Wow.

I said, This unbeliever has a better understanding of evangelism than many believers do.

Hell's a real place, heaven's a real place.

People will spend their eternity in one of those two places.

God wants it to be heaven.

This is the gospel truth.