The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 4: Love Shares

Episode Date: October 15, 2017

It is not love to merely meet physical needs and neglect to share the good news of eternal life.

Amen, amen. How are we doing? Cheris doing all right? Everybody's looking good. If you got your Bible, I hope you do, grab it. We're going to end up in Romans 10. That's the best place for you to go. I hope you are having a great day.

I hope we continue to have a great day. I got a new shirt for today. I hope you're excited about that. Put it on because of some festivities going on later on today. The Jags are in the Will of God playing a 4 o'clock game so preachers can go to the games. That's good. And you know the Lord is on our side. I don't know if you watched last week when we dominated the Steelers.

You know why? Because the Bible says thou shalt not steal. So they obviously are bad. And then today we play the Rams. And again, in the Bible, it doesn't go good for Rams. I don't know if you know that. They're mostly in up just a bloody mess. And so we're praying for the will of God at Everbank Field today.

And, you know, it has something to do with what we're going to talk about because we don't mind speaking boldly about things in which we believe deeply. sports is the easiest one to look at. Like if you're a fan, like today, I will lose my mind. I know it's just a game. I know it doesn't matter, whatever. It matters to me while I'm there watching. It matters a lot. And I know we're also a bunch of college fans here.

And I also am biblical in the team that I chose to follow in college, because I don't know about you, but my Bible is written with a whole lot of red and black. All right, that's why I'm a Georgia fan. And so I know some of you other folks like other teams, but I'm a Christian, so I like Georgia. And so if you're a fan of something, you know, you don't mind speaking boldly. I mean, football game is one of the greatest things to see. This common event brings us together. And people that sit in church like this do this at football games and hug people you don't know.

And I mean, it really drives something. And so it's not just sports, anything in which you believe deeply. Man, you'll speak boldly about it. I would love to tell you about my son's week of sports. He pitched in a baseball game, struck out a bunch of people, hit a bunch of baseballs yesterday. Reagan Capri had her very first gymnastics meet. So now we have moved from frolicing in a bathing suit to like an actual, like a real sport. And in fact, she was first place in all four events.

I think everybody was first place in all the events according to the ribbons, but still, she was one of the first place ones too. So praise God for that. You know what I mean? And so when you believe in something deeply, then you speak about it passionately or boldly. And so that's what we're going to talk about today, about the reality that love shares. And what we're talking about is love shares our faith. If you believe in Jesus deeply, then you will speak boldly about him.

And so if you haven't been here for this whole series, we're talking about the idea of what does it look like to love our neighbors. And so the first week, we asked a question that a lawyer asked Jesus, who is my neighbor? And Jesus basically says that's not the right question because that limits the love of God. and your neighbor is anybody that God puts on your path or in your path. And so the idea is just be neighborly or love every person that you come eyeball to eyeball with. That's who your neighbor is. And then the second week we talked about the reality that love accepts. That love accepts.

Why? Because God accepted us when we were wholly unacceptable. And he sent his perfect son to make a way for us to be made acceptable even though we're not. And we talked about this word hospitality in the Bible. And that does not mean you have the gift. doilies and scented candles. That's not what hospitality is in the Bible. It takes two Greek words to love the

outsider or love a stranger or love the alien. That's what we are called to do. So we are called to love or to accept people that are not like us, that don't think like us, that don't look like we do or believe like we do. Those are the people that we are to love. Because you can't win an enemy. First,

you make them a friend to have influence in their life. And then last week, we talked about the reality that love serves. That love is not a feeling, but love is an action, that love does something. Love is a verb. And I challenged us to sign up for our serve day where we want, as a church, to put on display the glory of God for our whole city to see in loving and serving our neighbors the way Christ loved us. And so over a thousand of you signed up last week, so we needed another thousand to sign up this week. And on October 31st,

we are going to put the love of God on display in our city by just serving people, meeting physical needs. And in fact, one of the reasons that we highlighted the McKenzie Wilson Foundation is a couple things. One is they will be one of the partners that we serve with. And I mentioned the last week that we needed 12 or 14 men to go to Portside next door to our San Pablo campus here. And mentor spends some time with some young men over there that don't have dads in their lives. And if we couldn't get 12 or 14 guys to do that on a consistent basis, then this whole thing is a joke. If love is actually a verb. Well, we had 81 men sign up to volunteer on a consistent basis.

Isn't that cool? That's great, man. Way to go. Honestly, historically, at Level 22, you do a great job of seeing a need and stepping up. And so a part of the reason we, I know all the campus pastors talked about this a little bit, but a part of the reason that we are talking about the McKenzie Wilson Foundation and promoting their run, aren't run with them, you need to be there, by the way. And listen, I go every year and I don't run at all. In fact, if you see me running, call the police something that's gone horribly wrong.

Either I am in trouble or somebody am chasing is in trouble, and the police should be there for one of us, all right? But you should be there for that. And what it's rooted in is this, like you heard, McKenzie, who's a 15-year-old girl, everything just in her life was up and to the right, man. She comes to a service, she comes to a service and surrenders her life to the Lordship of Christ. And four weeks later, she goes home to be with the Lord. And, I mean, tragic isn't even a big enough word. And yet, as we as a people were shaken by that, we could still see the sovereign hand of God in it and on it from the very beginning. Even though there's lots of questions and lots of like, I don't understand and why God, for sure.

I was right in the middle of asking those questions. God has used the life and legacy of one little girl to impact literally thousands of people around the world today. And when I met her dad in the hospital, he walked up to me with her Bible, and it was one of those free Bibles that's in the back of the chairs. And in it, she had written all of these notes around the text that I had been preaching on the previous weeks. And in one of the pages of her Bible, she just wrote this in big letters, man, I can remember it. And it wrote, she wrote, I want to make my faith public. Big exclamation point. I want to make my faith public.

And then she had written down some reasons why that made her nervous. And so basically what her mama and daddy did and a whole bunch of friends of theirs is when they started the McKenzie Foundation, it was to put feet to that prayer. That's what it is. That's what the whole foundation is. It was this girl's prayer, I want to make my faith public. And her mom and dad go, okay, how do we, how does God use us to be an answer to that prayer? And so the answer then, how do you make that faith public?

you love your neighbor. You love your neighbor the way Christ loved us. And that's what the care, give, grow stuff is all about. And the thing that I hope it causes you to think about is this, is if God could use the faith of that one little girl to literally reach thousands around the world today, then how could he use you? How could he use you? See, because one of my great prayers is that God would continue to use me in ways that don't line up with actually who I am, but he would use me in ways that are so much greater than who I am. And if he could use somebody like me, if he could use McKinsey, then why not you? Why not you? And you might not change the world, but God could use you to change someone's world forever. And the way you do that is why we, what we are talking

about today. It's about love shares. Love shares our faith. You see, because hopefully what happens as we love our neighborhoods and as we do the serve day on October 21st and as you put into practice what we talked about last week, as you begin to love the guy in your office that you hate, I know you're not supposed to hate him, but let's be honest, you hate him, all right? And you start acting that way. Hopefully what happens as we put the glory of God on display for this world to see, then hopefully people begin to ask questions and say, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? somebody sent me a really awesome email this week about the application of this series in their own life you see this this person is a third grade teacher bless you all right i don't know how you do that i don't know how if you locked me in a room with a bunch of third graders somebody's not making it

out okay you know what i'm saying it's not good so bless your ministry you are suffering for the lord i promise and so she said that this this last week there was a particular day where her kids were just the worst. I mean, just rebellious, disrespectful. They were all hopped up on pixie sticks, or, you know, I don't know what happened to them, she says. And so, and so she's just, I mean, it's bad, bad, bad, okay? In my mind, every day with third graders would be bad, but this was especially a bad day. And so to soothe her pain, she went to public after work, and she got a box of cookies. She was going to bake cookies for herself. And then she gets there, and it's a buy one, get one free. And so she's like, oh, wow, God really understands my pain, and he's giving me this gift. So she gets home,

She's got way too many cookies. And as she's stirring up the cookies, she says she begins to ponder upon the sermon, which is a very dangerous thing if you think about what we do here, like during your week. I dare you to do it. And so as she's pondering upon it and as she's thinking, you know what, I've got to do parent-teacher's meetings, I've got to write referrals, I've got to get the principal in here for discipline. She thought, you know what? Maybe instead of that, maybe I will love my students the way God loved me because I didn't deserve his love and they definitely don't deserve my love.

And so since she realized, oh, this is why God gave me that extra thing of cookies. And so she made way more cookies than she needed. And she called them grace cookies. And she brought the grace cookies to her class and put them on display for the class to see and says, these are for you. These are special cookies. These are called grace cookies. And the students go, what does that mean?

Because we deserve to be punished and yet we're getting cookies. And she goes right and uses this in a public school where you can. can't talk about Jesus, but guess what you can do? You can love people and put on display the glory of God and making cookies for little devils. That's another words in my mind that I get in trouble when I say them. You see, that's what we're talking about. We live in love in such a way that it makes our world scratch their head and go, what are you doing? And then in 1st Peter, chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, we'll go through it quick.

Peter tells us what to do when the world asks. It says this in verse 14, but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Now Peter here is talking about like giving up your life for following Jesus, but I think teaching third graders relates to that. But Jesus, remember, tells us last week we talked about when we serve, it is a picture of his suffering on the cross.

And so anytime we serve, there is a bit of, like it costs us something. It costs you time, it cost you money, it costs you comfort. It just takes you out of the middle of the equation and it makes somebody else a bigger deal than you. And he says, so even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who ask you for a reason for the hope that is in you. And when it says make a defense, it literally means be prepared to give an answer. Like a defense attorney would be like, you don't.

Your Honor, this is why these things happen. In other words, as we put on display the glory of God for our city and the way that we serve our city and love our neighbors as ourselves, it should cause people to scratch their head in your dorm room, in your office, in your neighborhood, in your family, and go, what are you doing this for? It seems to me you act in a system that's different than the system that we live in. It's like you have a different set of values. You have a different set of priorities. And honestly, is anybody asking you that?

Because if nobody is asking you about you, it may be because you're indistinguishable from this world. And that is very, very scary and dangerous. If nobody is asking you for the reason for the hope that is in you, then that might be a danger, danger, okay? A big old, a big old check engine light on your dashboard of following after Jesus. Because if we are indistinguishable from this culture, it may be. that we've bought into the system and values of this culture. And Jesus says, Jesus says this world would hate us because it hated him

and we are followers of him. And so it can be very easy, church, to get caught up in the current of our current culture and you don't know you're caught in it. It's like when your kids get out in the ocean, you have to keep waving them back. No, come down here. We're sitting down here, you know?

Because they get in and they just play with each other and then they go up there. Or if you surf, if you don't pay attention, you can paddle out at the pier and then catch a couple waves. and you look at me, you're like, oh, where at the poles? I'm going to have to need an Uber to get back to my truck, right? Because you get in the current and you just start drifting.

Peter says that we should live in such a way, whether it's through serving or suffering that causes our culture to say, how are you doing this? Like, for example, when you go through pain and suffering, as a Christian, we are not suffering proof. In fact, Jesus promised that we would endure suffering. And yet when we do it and our hope is not in our circumstances, but our hope is in our Savior, I'm telling you, it causes this world to scratch its head and go, how are you making it through this?

Because it's like you have a peace that transcends understanding. And you're like, yeah, you're right. Because I have somebody to guard my heart and mind, and his name is Jesus. And so the answer that we give is the gospel. The answer that we give is sharing our faith. The church word for that would be evangelism. Evangelism. Now, here's what I know.

The moment I say, all right, I'm going to preach about evangelism, there's a bunch of church people that are like, oh, no. And the reason is because of these next two words, next few words, it says this, yet do it with gentleness and respect. And I think a lot of the reasons church folks reject evangelism like, hey, I don't want to, I'm not going to share my faith, is because we've seen it done without gentleness and respect. like I'm going to tell you on the way to the jazz game today the bullhorn guy always yells at me every single I must look like the lost person

most lost person in Jacksonville okay people will share their faiths with me all the time and I always like ask the questions I know they can't answer you know what I mean I just do but I look lost apparently and the guy with the bullhorn and the sign is gonna be you're going to hell I'm like I'm just going at a Jags game okay can you just relax and so when it says with gentleness and respect it's not yelling in signs it's not aggressive, it's not disrespectful. You remember, we've talked about this, that it's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. So maybe we should try it God's way. And I think there's a bunch of reasons that Christians don't share their faith, but Romans chapter 10 is going to walk through

what it looks like for us to love people enough, not to just meet physical needs, that's important, but to also share our faith. So Romans chapter 10 is kind of a how-to in sharing your faith. And there's really three major ingredients in Romans 10. The first ingredient is the heart, like your heart for people that don't know Christ. The second ingredient is you've got to understand the gospel. You kind of need to understand what you're sharing. And then the third thing is just go and then do it.

So Romans chapter 10, verse 1 says this. Brothers, this is the Apostle Paul writing. brothers my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved now the them he's talking about if you read really all through the book of Romans but it starts in chapter 8 and it goes through chapter 11 the them that he's talking about is his Jewish brothers and sisters his Jewish brothers and sisters and he he is saying that this bothers me their lack of salvation bothers me deep deep deep down at the heart and soul level. He says, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they would be saved.

So the question I would ask you is, who is the them for you? And do you, are you actually bothered down at the heart level to the point where you desire for this to happen, you're praying for this to happen, that you, you are begging God, God, would you please save my dad, my mom, my brother, my sister, my father-in-law, whoever it is, and that you're legitimately bothered deep down at the soul level. Because if not, it may be because you have not experienced the love of God deep down at the heart and soul level. I don't know how in the world you could be run over by the grace train that is the love of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ and it not completely wreck all of your priorities and all of your senses and sensibility.

And that people not knowing him becomes like one of the highest priorities in your life. And if that isn't, if your heart doesn't break for the 2.5 billion people around the world that don't know Jesus, then it is a big, big warning that you may have never personally experienced the love of Jesus. Because Paul says, my heart's desire in prayer. In fact, in another place in Romans, he's going to say, God, I would be a curse that they might be saved. In other words, I would give up my spot in heaven and go to hell on their behalf if you

would just save my brothers and sisters. Did you make that trade? You see, that's a heart's desire that people could experience the love of God that you and I have experienced. Around here, we call that one more. We call that one more. It came from the tattoo that's on my arm. Acts 1124, and he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

And a great number of people are not the thousands that will be at all of our campuses today. A great number of people for me is just one more. It's just one more person would come to Christ. And I've got some one more's in my life. I write them down. I'd pray for them. God, would you just please? And it, you know, it baffles me sometimes.

I've played a part in leading literally thousands of people over the last few years. And yet sometimes, I just can't break through on the people that I'm praying like crazy. This is how Paul feels. And so I would highly encourage you to write down, who's that one person, That one person that you would pray, God, would you soften their heart? Would you open their eyes? And listen, when you write that down, you just pray. You don't make it public.

You don't stick it on a sticky note in your cubicle. The guy comes up and go, hey, why's my name there? Oh, you're going to hell, but I'm praying for you. Don't worry about it. Yeah. That's right. I pray every day. Hell, you're not.

That's not what we're saying to do. And I'll tell you this. You want a heart four people far from God. You start praying four people that are far from God. And by the way, if you're here today and somebody invited you as a guest, let me tell you why they invited you. They probably didn't say it this way, but this is why they invited you. They love you. They love you, and they are trying to share something with you that has been of infinite importance to them. They're not trying to convince you or convert you, or you're not a project, but they love you enough to say, hey, will you come and, will you come and check this thing out? Because I think it's the truth. I think it's the most important decision you'll ever make in your life. And they may not be able to say that to you.

Like some of you're here thinking, well, I'm here with a golfing buddy, right? And it would be weird if on the T's like, hey, Ted, I love you, and my heart's desire is for you. And be like, hey, boss, we ain't playing golf together anymore, right? But deep down, this is what is happening. And so it starts here. It starts with a heart for people. And then secondly, we dive into, you've got to understand what you're talking about. And so what Paul is going to do here from verse 2 down is he is going to unpack the gospel.

But it starts first and foremost with this. If you have been run over by the gospel, then if Jesus is in here, then you want him to come out of your words and out of your head and say, hey, listen, this is what is important to me. And honestly, I think sometimes we don't because we live in such a me-centered world. we just wake up every day and thinking about me. And I think sometimes we don't because we're afraid. We're afraid of what people will think. And when we do this, it's really scary, man. What we tend to do is we value a friendship over a friend.

We make what they think about us. We treat that like it's more important than the person's eternity. And then maybe one of the scariest ones in the world is this. We just get busy. Because I know some of you're like, hey, pastor, listen, I don't hate my neighbors. You know, I don't just ride down the road and just think, nope, he's going to hell and he's going to hell. and I don't care and I don't care. I just got stuff to do, man. I got a Jags game to go to, and I got places to be. My seminary professor, one of my favorites, he told me this,

that I graduated. If the devil can't make you bad, he will make you busy. And if we are so busy that we have taken our eyes off of the reason that you were on this earth, then we're not doing this thing right. You see, the reason that we are here is for the glory of God. And that's as a church and as individual people. The reason, the reason, the reason that we start new services, the reason that we plant new campuses, the reason that we plant churches all over the world, there is one reason, and the reason is the glory of God. And the reason that we share our faith with somebody and invite people to surrender their life to the Lordship of Christ is for the glory of God, and there's nothing more glorifying to God than more people glorifying God.

And there is not a square inch in all of the cosmos where Jesus does not rightly proclaim mine. and yes, that is in the jungles of Brazil and the plains of Africa and the cubicle farm in your office that you would take the gospel into those places. So then in verse 2 and following, he unpacks what the gospel is. Verse 2, he says, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God. In other words, they're very, very religious. They do a lot of religious activities. But not according to knowledge.

For being ignorant of the righteousness of God. Now, anytime the Bible in Romans uses the word righteous, it means a right standing before God, a right standing before God. And the only way to have a right standing before God is not based on your religious activity. The only way to have a right standing before God is that you have to be perfect. And the only way to be perfect is it is going to have to be credited or counted unto you. The Bible says it this way. In 2 Corinthians 521, that God made Him who was without sin to be sin for us,

that we would be made the righteousness of God. And so that's how anybody becomes righteous. So these folks, he says, Paul says, I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God. In other words, they're very religious, but not according to knowledge, for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, their own righteousness,

they did not submit to God's righteousness. In other words, they are trying to earn a right standing with God based on their religious activity. not gods. This is the heart of rules-based religion versus a relationship that's based in the grace of God. Those two things are not the same. You see, what he's saying is they didn't get it.

They reject God with the religious activity saying, God, we don't need you because we got this. I could obey the rules on my own. And what Paul is saying is, I'm trying to help them understand that it's not about rules-based religion, it is about a relationship based in the grace of Jesus Christ. Verse four, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. In other words, Christ came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

And listen, this is not just true of first century religious people. This is true of all people all the time. In our current culture, all we've done is we've changed what righteousness means. The people aren't necessarily on a righteousness pursuit or right standing with God. They are on this pursuit of their own definition of righteous. Like this is what life is for me. This is what happiness and fulfillment or my purpose is. And people chase all kind of stuff.

People do chase religion without a doubt thinking they can somehow earn a right standing with God. A lot of people turn to the world. What are the things that I can acquire in this world that give me meaning? It's more money. It's more power. It's more accomplishments. Some people just rebel. Hey, you only live once.

So eat, drink, and be married because tomorrow, you will die. And some people go to self-improvement, just trying to become a better version of me. And what Paul is saying here is none of those things will fully and finally satisfy. There is only one thing that will satisfy. And that is that right relationship with God. He goes on in verse 5 to say this, for Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. You see, the point of the ten commandments, there are over 600 commandments in total, but the top ten, the point of the commandments is this.

It was to give us a map and a mirror to righteousness. It was to give us a map. This is what righteous living looks like. There's only one God. Don't use the Lord's name in vain. Obey the Sabbath. Keep it holy. Obey your parents.

All of those things, the 10 commandments, are to give us a map. This is what righteousness looks like. But it was also given to us as a mirror. When you hold up the law of God as a mirror to yourself, if you're honest, you go, uh-oh, there's a problem. I can't pull this list off. I don't know when the last time you've taken the Ten Commandment test is, but let me just assure you, you would get a big fat F, a zero.

And you might say, but I'm a good guy. Okay, that's pride. That's one of them. You shouldn't do that, all right? I mean, really, have you used the Lord's name in vain? Or driven on JTB at about 5 o'clock? Huh? And usually what happens?

I mean, do you obey the Sabbath and keep it holy? Who does that other than Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby anymore? You understand? And then everybody feels really good when you get to the sixth one, thou shalt not murder. You're like, ha ha ha, ha, I have not murdered anybody. And then Jesus comes along and says, yeah, you've heard that it was said, thou shalt not murder. But if you are angry against your brother and your heart. So if you have a brother, you're like, yep, I'm out.

I killed him in my mind once, all right? The reality of the Ten Commandments are that we can't do it on our own. You see, the reason God gives it is so that it diagnoses us to everybody understand. stands, we got a problem. Like, the reason there's a speed limit, and so we know what the limit is. If you hopped on 95 and it just said, good luck, drive safely. What does that mean? A couple of you old boys be going 42 in the left lane, and then some of you, younger guys,

be 142 in the grass, all right? And so the speed limit says, no, no, no, no, this is over the line. And so what the law does is that, again, it's a map and it's a mirror that we would know that we need a savior. verse 6 but the righteousness based on faith so again there was a righteousness according to the law can I do enough good stuff to be perfect before God and then there's an alternative the righteousness based on faith says do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down or who will descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead in other words

a righteousness by faith putting your faith in Jesus is not a works-based righteousness. Putting your faith in Jesus is not about what you do to make you okay with the Lord, whether it's climbing up or digging down. That's just what he's saying. But what does it say? And the it there is a righteousness based on faith. But what does it say? The word is near you. Now, this is a really, really big deal. You can't run by phrases like this in the Bible. What he's saying is this. Every world religion on the planet, It's the same. It's the same.

The details are different, but the foundation is the same. Every world religion is this. There's a God or a higher power up there, out there somewhere, and I have to do these things, and if I do enough of these good things, then I will be acceptable unto that God. And every single one of them, that is what it is. It could be a line in your chakra. It could be taking a trip to Mecca.

It could be obey the five pillars. It could be obey the Ten Commandments. Even a Christless, gospel-less church will preach this sometimes. A good Christian does these things to be right before God. And Paul, the Bible says, wrong answer. It's not God's up on the hill and step by step in your goodness you work your way up to God. He goes, no, the Word is near. And we know from John chapter 1 that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God.

And then when you get to verse 14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt us among us. So Jesus is near. that God does not sit up on his throne and say, if you do these good things, then one day, maybe I will accept you. But he says, I'm going to send Jesus on a rescue mission to seek and to save the lost, to do for you what you could not do on your own. And so we don't do good things to make us acceptable, but because Christ has accepted us at the cross of Jesus Christ,

it transforms everything about the way we live. And the reason that we do good things is not because we're good. the reason that we do good things is because Christ is in us and it puts on display the glory of God for the world to see in the way we love our neighbors like ourselves. See, this is what he's saying here. It is unique. Because, again, if you take, honestly, even if you've set the Ten Commandments aside, you fail your own exam of your own commandments. Nobody lies to you more than you do. Is anybody still rocking out their New Year's resolution from January? No. You're close enough to the next go-round. You're like, I'll just. get it next year. No, you won't. You will not. You lie to yourself. Me too. You promise I'll never do this again. The biggest one that shows up in me is I promised to God. There were things that I would not do to my kids that my dad did to me. I promised. And I am more like my dad. I am

possessed like a demon by Joseph Perry Martin Jr. You know, those things, I mean, turning off lights. Anybody in this room? Doors are open? You know, are we trying to AC all of Jacksonville? I'm like, where's that coming from? You just can't stop it. Have you ever not wanted to do something? You said he didn't want to do something, and then you did it again?

You know what that means? Something's wrong. Something's wrong, and it's deep down in here. And so the good news of the gospel is not. If you fix that, God might let you in. The good news of the gospel is the word, came near that Jesus came down to do for us what we couldn't do for ourselves that is the foundation of the gospel the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart and you can't see you can't have one

without the other that if that if Jesus is in your heart then he's also going to be in your words that is the word of faith that we proclaim verse 9 very famous verse you should memorize this because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the you'll be saved. It's like the gospel right here. You've heard this in a million different ways around here. You hear it in the baptismal tubs every time we do a baptism. Who is Jesus? Jesus is my Lord and Savior. They are confessing with their mouth that Jesus is Lord. And there's a lot. There's a lot here. First of all, Jesus is Lord and Savior. Those two things cannot be divorced. The Jesus can't just be your savior and Him not be your Lord because to know Him as Savior is to lay down your life. It's to

surrender your life and say, you are the boss of me, I'm not the boss of me anymore. The way I say it around here all the time is this. If you believe when Jesus died on the cross, somehow that counted for you, then surrender your life. That is the Dylan Redneck version of Romans 109. If you believe in your heart, God raised him from the bedea, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. The other thing that's true, not just in your salvation, but also in everyday life, is if he is in your heart, like you believe in. in your heart, then you will confess with your mouth. It's not you should, it's you will.

Why? Jesus says, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So you know what this means? Is that whatever's in here comes out of here. I use this example all the time. If I shake this, what comes out? It always goes silent. Somebody's like, oh gosh, this is a trick.

Jesus. I'm going to go, Jesus. No, it's water. It's water. Why? because water's in here. That means whatever comes out of your mouth is evidence of what is in your heart.

So there is no slip. There's no slip. When you stump your toe, you don't have a potty mouth. You have a potty heart. That's our problem. And Romans chapter 6 will teach us that we're not glorified yet,

so there's still this kind of internal battle going on between our flesh and the spirit of God. And so if you get shaken up and Jesus never shows up in your words, that's a big fat warning. Because if he is in here, he will come out of your mouth.

And so if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You know what this also means is that you got to trust in your heart. That following Jesus, being a Christian, is not just mentally agreeing with a set of doctrines. Because the Bible says even the demons believe like that. Even the demons, if we pass out a theology exam, do you realize the demons, they would smoke it. They've been around a minute. They understand good theology. But they don't follow Jesus.

They don't love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strings. You see, there is some emotion in a relationship. There is an emotive response in us having faith in Jesus. And then it says, you will be saved. Saved. The implication is that you were saved from something, you were saved to something, and you were saved by someone. religion can't save.

Religion is handing a drowning man swimming instructions and saying, good luck. It's not going to work. But the fact that we are saved means that Jesus did for us what we could not do on our own. You see, the reality is this. You are more sinful than you ever thought you were. And yet you are more loved than you ever dreamed you could be. Those two realities are found in the person.

in the work of Jesus. Like you think you're a sinner? It's how it's worse than you think. It's really worse than you think. And then you think, oh gosh, well then maybe I'm hopeless. No, no, no, no, you're not. You're more deeply loved by God than you ever dreamed you could be. And so when we put our faith in Jesus,

salvation is really past, present, and future. We are saved from our sin. We are saved from the penalty of sin. We are being saved on the daily. basis from the power of sin. And one day we will be saved from the very presence of sin. That's why there's no, every tear

will be wiped away in heaven. And so if we, if we confess with our mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Verse 10. 4, with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth, one confesses and is saved. He's using salvation and justification

interchangeably here. Here's what justified means. If you believe in Jesus, if you trust in Jesus, then when God says you are justified, it's a legal first century term. It means, though you are actually guilty, the judge declares you not guilty. The way to remember this is justification is this, is that in Christ, it's justified never sin before. That God looks at me and he sees the righteousness of his son because he has justified us. Verse 11, Paul's going to start quoting scripture. For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. That's Isaiah 2816. Verse 12. Four, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

For the same Lord is Lord of all bestowing his riches on all who call on him. This is heavy. This is heavy. Here's what he's saying. Remember, back at the beginning of the verse, he was talking about his Jewish brothers and sisters, and he was just at a heart level wanting them to surrender their lives to the Lordship of Christ. And so here he says there is no distinction between people groups. In other words, no one gets grandfathered into heaven because who the grandfather was. That's not how it works. Nobody gets in because of the tribe you came from. That sin must be paid for in order for us to be made right with God, regardless of your DNA, regardless of your heritage, regardless of who you are. And next year we're going to do a real

deep dive into this, but you just got to know this. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord as Lord of all bestowing his riches on all who call on him. Now, here's the thing. Jesus himself says, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And just in case they didn't know what the way was, he goes on to explain it. And no one comes to the father except through me. Now, let's be honest. This is the part that our world has the biggest hang up with. This is it. They don't have hang up with the morality of the church. They don't have, this is the hang up, especially in our current culture. And I've had people say, do you mean to tell me that Jesus is the only way? I go, yeah, nigga, you believe that if I don't believe

like you believe about Jesus, then I don't go to heaven. I go, well, listen, I'm just, I believe Jesus believe in it, because that's what he said out loud. And then he died in a tomb and then came back three days later. And if you come back from the dead, after you tell everybody, I'm with you. Whatever you believe, that's what I'm with, okay? Because I, I want to come back like that, too, all right? And so So here's the thing. Jesus himself says, I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father except through me. To the folks, yeah, yeah, but my granddad, he's like, oh, okay, you don't get to inherit eternal life from your grandparents.

You're not like born into it. And for us today, going to church does not make you a Christian any more than putting your head in the oven makes you a biscuit. That is not how it works. And you don't get to, you don't, there are no, like, multi-generational faith. It doesn't pass down that way. It is about each individual person, either. saying I will atone for my own sin or I will take the sacrificial atonement of Jesus.

He said, not me. And then again, I know people are like, how, but isn't that narrow? Well, he said that too. He said, narrow is the way. Narrow is the way that leads to eternal life. But why does the path of destruction? So here's the thing that I'll talk with people about. I'll go, okay, you don't think everybody goes to heaven, do you?

Right? You don't think everybody. It's not an all skate. I mean, can't we all agree Hitler goes to hell? Every sermon about who goes to hell, Hitler is always the one in hell, right? So he's in hell every week, all right? And so you think Hitler's out, okay? He's in hell, yes, yes.

And can we agree? Jesus made it in. Can we agree on that? Yeah. All right, so somewhere, there is a line somewhere between Hitler and Jesus, and all of us live somewhere in the middle here. Okay, well, then where's the line? How do you get in?

How do you get in? Are you saying that if you're good enough, you get in? because you've got to ask how good. How good? I mean, is it like 99? Do you have to get 100? Do you have to ace it? Is it past fail?

Is it like a C you're in and a D you're out? Is it 51% you're in and 49? You know, where is the line? Because it seems like if good people went to heaven, God, hey, he's got to at least get up the grading scale. And you know what else would be helpful? How about a progress report? Because I kind of think, based on some of the years in my past,

I might not have enough left. You know, like if you got your progress report and you've got one test left and you've got to make 190 on it? I think I should drop the class. Right. Listen, there's a bunch of you in here. You'd have to drop the class. You just don't have enough days left to do good stuff. So then Jesus says, the only way you're in is that you have to be righteous before God.

And the only way to be righteous before God is we have to have a perfect man do for us what we've already screwed up. because even if we were perfect from this day forward, what do you do about yesterday? How do you pay for that one? And Jesus says, I will do for you what you cannot do. I'll take the test for you. And I will take your grade and you get mine. And so is his claim narrow?

Yeah, it is very narrow. Is it exclusive? It's sort of exclusively inclusive. Here's what I mean. Jesus says, everyone is invited. Everyone. No matter where you grew up, there's no cash system, there's no particular people group that are above an other people group, no matter how much money you have or color or what you believed or any of that stuff, everyone is invited. He just said, everyone. Everyone's invited. And everybody gets in the same way. Everybody gets in the same way. And the price has already been paid. So is that exclusive? It's exclusively inclusive is what Jesus is saying. And so he goes on to say this in verse 13, For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I got good news for you, no matter what campus you're going to, that you are a part of the everyone. The way we say it around here is we're a movement for all people to discover a deep in a relationship with Jesus. We got the idea right here. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

That means this, if you're really bad, I mean you're bad, and you know you're bad. And I mean sinfully bad. And you know what I'm talking about. Some of you have sin scheduled on your calendar right now. You do. You're scheduled a week to go sin on purpose. You're hiding stuff in your car and you're hanging out with people that you know are going to,

you're going to do bad fun, but bad things, okay? If that's you, I've got good news for you. You could be saved. You could be saved. That Jesus died for you. And I know sometimes people like, man, you don't know what I've been. done, then apparently you don't know what the Savior did for you on the cross. Because, yes, I got, two great truths. I am a great sinner. And praise God, I have a greater Savior. You see, because Paul,

the guy that wrote these words, he's worse than you. No matter what you've done, he's worse than you. If you were having a confession time at Starbucks with the Apostle Paul, and he was like, okay, you go first. And you were like, yeah, it's really bad. It's really bad. I cheated on my taxes. I looked at something on the internet, and I cussed out my kid. Paul goes, that's cool, I murdered a disciple. Next. No matter what you've done, unless you're a terrorist in here, if so, we have a ministry we'd like to introduce you to called Nehemi, all right? And so, then you're JV compared to Paul.

And yet he would say in Romans 8.1, therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That the love of God poured out through his son, Jesus on the cross is bigger than whatever you have done or doing or will do. And God doesn't do takebacks. He didn't save you back in the day and then saw you this weekend and went, nope, give it back. No. He doesn't love some future version of you. He knew what he was getting and he bought you. No matter how bad you are, you can be saved.

And another part of the everyone group, some of you are good. I mean, you are so good. You are so good. You never miss church. Actually, you go to multiple services. You go to each one of our campuses and you've got it worked out just so you can experience from kind of a different angle. every week. You sponsor a bunch of kids. You go on every mission trip. You're in multiple

disciple groups. You serve. I mean, you were so good. You're so good. You're so good. Not only, you don't say bad words. You don't even say the words that aren't necessarily bad, but they sound like the bad words. You don't even say darn it. No, we don't say darn it in my house. It could be. It's just too close, okay? You cringe half the time I'm speaking, all right? That's you. In fact, when I said, if you've got your Bibles, go to Romans 10. You went, Romans 10, none if you believe in your heart. Jesus is Lord and confess me in the mouth. That's what you did, okay? I've got really good news for you. You could be saved. You can. You can. That you, it is not your good works that save you. Isaiah says that our righteousnesses are like filthy rags before the

Lord. And that you could be saved too, not based on your goodness, but based on the goodness of God. You see, the Bible says that we're not saved by works. And what it means is we're not saved by our works. We are saved by works. It's just Jesus's work. on the cross. And when you say, when everyone, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now Jesus said, everybody says to me, Lord, Lord didn't make it in. That means that they just said it with their mouth. They did not trust or believe it in their heart. To call on the name of the Lord means that you align your life with the character and nature of Jesus, where you say, God, I need a savior. God, I call it like a drowning man. Help me. I can't do this on my own.

everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So there is the gospel. Now the third ingredient is now go and tell people. Go and tell people. He says this in 14 and 15. He says, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe or trust in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without somebody preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are sent. it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. Good news and gospel is the same thing. You see, what he's saying is, if you have been hit by the grace train of the love of God, then you must go wherever you are. You go. You're sent to preach the good news so that people can hear and believe and call in the name of the Lord. And you see, and what we preach is good news. The gospel means good news. For news to be news, two things happen. One, is it happen, and then two, it is reported. That's what the gospel is. You know what happened? Jesus rose from the grave. We don't have faith in faith. We have faith in the reality that when Jesus died on the cross,

that counted for you. And he proved it by getting out of the grave three days later. That happened. And then we report it. And here's how he says. If you reverse engineer what Paul is talking about here, there are five things that we do. We're sent, we preach, we hear, we believe, and we call. All right? Number three, four, and five, only God can do in the human heart. Number one and two is our responsibility. So Paul lays out our role in God's sovereign plan of salvation for the world. Number one, we're sent. If you open up your worship guide, these are our mission trips for next year.

Ready, go. Pick the one that you want to go on and sign up and go. And if you're scared, perfect. Go to the scariest one. That's what you should do. Trust God. If you come to 1122, no matter what campus you're at, you've got three years to go. Three years.

they're like, why do you say that? Because Jesus, disciples, the three years, and then he said, go, tell the world. We're Jesus people. We do Jesus stuff. That's what we do. And if you're like, yeah, but I got babies. All right, you got a three-year window. By the time they get to three, give them to Nana, and go.

And I know you'll have to deprogram them when you get them back, but it's your fault for the way you treated her when you were three. All right? So that's what God's doing. But just go. Get over the excuses, be obedient to what Christ says, and let's go. So sign up for one of these. Some of you go, yeah, in there enough to do here in Jacksonville. Yes. And the people that I meet that say that do the least here in our own community.

The people that go the most also serve the most at home. C.T. Studs says the light that shines far that shines brightest at home. I got an idea. Sign up for October 21st and serve our city. It's not either or. God is a both and God. And don't miss this. And live every single day of your life on mission. The school you go to, the neighborhood you live in, go with the idea that the reason God has you in that place is you are on mission for God. So be praying like crazy for that one more person that you could have the opportunity to share your faith with. Number two, preach.

Preach. He says, how will they hear if you don't preach? Now, when he says preach, I'm not saying do the thing I'm doing right now. You don't invite your neighbors over for a party and have everybody sit down and be like, all right, if you got your Bibles and I hope you do. And you do the little thing I do, all right? You don't have to do that. It just means you open your mouth and you talk about the Lord. And it doesn't have to be weird.

Unless you're weird, it's going to be weird. but you're weird. Everything you do is weird, and you probably don't know it, all right? So, praise God. The happiest people I know are you, all right? But you would just naturally share your faith. So here, I'm going to break it down so you can kind of see what I mean. Sometimes you share the gospel. Like you share about God's creation and intent, the fallen, sinful nature of man, Christ, sacrificial death on the cross, and somebody to surrender their life in that moment. You give an invitation. Sometimes you share the whole deal. And sometimes you share your story. You share your story.

Because here's the reality, man. People can argue about archaeological evidence of the Bible, and what about the ark and the dinosaurs. And so sometimes God gives you an opportunity to just share your story, which is simply this. This is what my life was like. This is how I met Jesus. And this is what my life has been like since then.

And that doesn't mean it's not all cotton candy and roses post-Jesus, but it's this is how Christ has sustained me. And listen, you can't argue with that. You can't. People are not going to be like, no, that didn't happen. I promise, I was there. This is my life. And the place we get this is in John chapter 9, Jesus heals a blind man.

And some religious people are asking this blind man, hey, who did this to you? And the guy's like, I don't know what happened. I used to be blind, and then I met Jesus, and now I can see. And then they go, well, where is he now? He's like, I don't know. But here's what I know. I used to be blind. Then I met Jesus, and now I can see.

And then they say, well, how and why did he do this? And the guy's like, hold on, listen. I used to be blind. Jesus, ta-da, that's all I got. You can keep asking questions. That's all I know right now, okay? And so sometimes that's what you do. You just have the opportunity.

Because if you are maturing in Christ, the people you know best will go, what's going on with you? And what they are saying is, will you tell me your story? Okay, so sometimes you share the gospel. Sometimes you share your story. Sometimes you share an invitation. You share an invitation to church. And this is, when Jesus calls one of the disciples, he goes and tells his brother,

hey, I think I found the Messiah. And the brother's like, where's he from? The guy's like, Nazareth. The other guy's like, can anything good come from Nazareth? And the other disciple goes, just come and see. Come check him out for yourself. So sometimes the way you share an invitation is you share an invitation to church. Hey, once you just come and check it out for yourself.

And here, I'm going to be very practical because the gospel is, all right? Here's what you do tomorrow, tomorrow, at work, whoever it's with, and you go, what did you do yesterday? And they're going to say things. And then, you know what they have to do? Because they're American. What do you have to do? You have to say, and what did you do yesterday? That's where you go, I went to church.

Do you have a church? Why don't you come with me next week? And what you don't do is don't give a nonvitation. You know what a nonvite is? A nonvite is when you look at somebody and say, You should come to church with me sometime. Go to your calendar and find some time. There is no sometime.

Sometime is a polite way to say, we're never hanging out. Yeah, we should go to lunch sometime. There's no sometime. I'll never see you again. All right, that's what that is. So you give an invitation. That's a time and a date and a place. I'm going to meet you there.

We can walk in together. I'll help you check your kids in, whatever it is. And next week, the reason we're doing this week, this week, and next week next week, is this week. We're training you up so that next week is a one more weekend. where we're going to lay out the gospel and you can invite somebody. Hey, you need to come to church with me. We meet it this time, afterwards we go to lunch, that kind of thing.

So you share the gospel. Sometimes you share your story. Sometimes you share an invitation. This is the one that most people leave out. And sometimes you just share another cup of coffee. Because you kind of feel like you're just, you know, it's not going where you were hoping it goes. And that's okay. You see, we can't save anybody.

Only God saves. We're just called the love. And so sometimes you just share another cup of coffee. You just continue to build that relationship because it's not a project. It's a person. It's a God-glorifying thing to have conversations where you treat them with great dignity and respect

and that you could be the place where people could ask questions. And you know what a great answer to a question that you don't know is? I don't know. I've had the same question. Maybe I'll go find out. And here's what happens. Here's why you do this. It's because when you share your faith, it's never in vain.

what happens is if you become known as like the Jesus person, the prayer person, the I go to church person, then when that person that you're trying to share your faith with over time, even if you invite them every week and they never come or they promise them they don't show up, let me tell you what happens. When they find themselves in a place of great need or great tragedy or great confusion, guess who they'll come to? They will come to you and say, hey, can you help me with this? And you go, yeah, yeah. Because man, you've never come eyeball to eyeball with a mere mortal. They're not projects. We're not trying to grow the 1122. We're trying to grow on this earth God being glorified. And the best way for him to be glorified is more people glorifying him. And so share the gospel,

share your story, share an invitation, share another cup of coffee. Here is the point. It is not love to merely meet physical needs and neglect to share the good news of eternal life. It's not. It is not. There is no way. You could rightfully look at somebody that you say you love and you see their life heading over an eternal cliff that leads to damnation. And we don't get in the way and go, hey, I love you too much to not tell you about eternal life. John Piper says it this way. We care about all human suffering in this age, especially eternal suffering. And so church, did you know about 80 to 90% of people today that call themselves Christians say that the reason that they have faith in Jesus is because somebody that,

they knew invited them either to church or invited them to listen to their story. 80 to 90%. I think about the man that led me to Christ all the time. And he wasn't a preacher. He did not have a theology degree. He didn't go to Bible school. He knew his Bible really well. I bet he didn't know one Greek word.

If we said a Greek word, he was the guy, I'd be like, that sounds like a cuss word. You can't even say that, okay? And yet he loved us. He loved me enough to share the gospel with me. And so what if, think about the person that told you about Jesus. What if you were that person in somebody else's life? Because you never know. God is sovereign over salvation.

He's sovereign over the ends, but he's also sovereign over the means. Which means in God's sovereign plan for the salvation of some people that are on your mind right now, that he has given us the responsibility to be obedient, to go and open our mouths and share, share our faith. So would you please stand and let's pray. our good and gracious heavenly father god we love you because you love us first and god i thank you that you've so loved us that you didn't just think about it god you sent jesus on a rescue mission to do for us what we could not do and god we thank you that he did not just demonstrate his love but he also preached about it so we could know that we can understand lord we pray right now for those people

that we love so dearly and we would love for them to experience the love that we've experienced from you. And God, we just lay our lives on the altar to say, Lord, if you would use us, glory to you. And God, we are blown away that the almighty sovereign king of the universe could draw men and women unto yourself however you want. And yet, you decide to use us. So, God, help us to overcome our fears. Help us to keep our eyes wide open for opportunities. God, help us, help us to put on display your glory for this world to see in the way that we love our neighbors. And a part of the way that we love them is we open our mouth and we share the good news of eternal life. We prayed in Jesus' name. Amen.