2 Corinthians 5:11-21 - How To Love The Lost
Main Idea: You exist on planet Earth to invite others to Jesus’ kingdom.
CARE ABOUT THEIR SOULS MORE THAN YOUR COMFORT
• “How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?” — Penn Jillette
RESPECT THEM AS BEING WORTH THE DEATH OF CHRIST
• Since Jesus died for them, there’s no freedom for us to hate them.
VIEW YOUR JOB AS RECONCILING, NOT RIDICULING
• “Jesus, Friend of sinners, open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers.” — Casting Crowns - Jesus Friend Of Sinners
SHOW THEM WHO JESUS IS & WHAT HIS KINGDOM LOVES
• Your love for your fellow Christians, your forgiveness, & your kindness are gifts from Jesus to draw people to Him.
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)
We have been walking through a sermon series, and despite the somewhat humorous fact that it's named after a famous song, it's been serious, I promise, if you're not been in the series.
The series, I Want to Know What Love Is, and a series on biblical love. We looked that first week at God's Love for Us from 1 Corinthians 13, and how Jesus loved us and how he continues to love us.
Then last week, we looked at how we are to love other Christians, and we looked at Colossians 3, and I don't know about you guys, that message was maybe not the message itself.
As I was meditating on those truths all last week, and then even going into this week over and over again, like I'll say something to my wife or I'll say something to someone, and then instantly the Lord was like, hey, was that lovin?
No, Lord, that wasn't loving, and it was just a consistent reminder, and I hope that it was for you all, that we are called to supernatural treatment of God's people. We're called to love others as God has loved us.
But then today, we are concluding this series by looking at how to love the lost from 2 Corinthians 5 and verses 11-21. How to love the lost. Over the next 5 weeks at Tabernacle, every Christmas season, we take up the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
And Lottie Moon was a missionary to China about 100 years or so ago. And she ended up, if I remember the story correctly, both with her and with Annie Armstrong, Lottie actually gave her life on the mission field, if I recall correctly.
And so there's an annual Christmas offering that our family of churches, Great Commission Baptist, Southern Baptist take. And we take the month of December, and all of our churches, I think there's about 46,000 or so of us all across the US.
And we collect money to send to missionaries who will spread the gospel all across the globe. And it's a wonderful thing. I mentioned last week, even a missionary that I got to meet at our state conventions annual meeting.
And we're going to be looking at some more missionaries and their stories even over the next five weeks.
But as we are collecting funds to send the gospel message thousands of miles around the globe, it doesn't go to enrich us, it goes to bless others, it goes to people that will never meet in countries that most of us will never see.
Why in the world would we do that? The answer is simple. Because we want to love those that do not know Jesus as their Savior.
But I want to encourage us today that we cannot just love the lost with money that we give, whether to a local church or to missionaries far away. Instead, there has to be a love for those that do not know Jesus within your life and mine.
In fact, today, I'd go so far as to say that we exist on planet Earth to invite people into Jesus' kingdom. You exist on planet Earth to invite people into Jesus' kingdom.
If perhaps you're a little bit newer to church, even the phrase when I say the lost, if that's unfamiliar to you, it comes from a verse in Scripture where Jesus says, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.
God describes our state before we have come to a saving knowledge of Christ as being like sheep without a shepherd. That is, we are living our life, but we don't know the way that we are supposed to be living.
We don't know where we're supposed to go, who we're supposed to do life with, what our ultimate purpose is.
God has called us to share the Gospel with those that are lost, that do not know Jesus as their Savior, they've never surrendered to him as the Lord of their life. And so today, we're gonna look at 2 Corinthians 5.
I encourage you, if you have your Bible, please open that, and we're gonna go over to verse 11 in 2 Corinthians 5. And we'll read through these verses.
It's also on the back of your handout that you received today, and so I encourage you to be following along, even as I read. Scripture says this, Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people.
What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your consciences.
We're not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to be proud of us so that you may have a reply for those who take pride in outward appearance rather than in the heart. For if we're out of our mind, it's for God.
If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us. Since we've reached this conclusion that one died for all, and therefore all died.
And he died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. From now on then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective.
Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, and see, the new has come.
Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation. Can you guys read those last two words? To us.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.
Today, from this passage, we're gonna see what Paul told a church in Greece, the church at Corinth, what he told them 2,000 years ago, that is no less applicable in 2025 than in the first day that it was pen.
That truth is this, every person, every man and woman and child that you interact with has an eternal soul, that they are being created by God for a relationship with him, that they would know and enjoy him and be able to participate in the good
creation that he made. He made them for a relationship with him.
However, we would know the story from Scripture that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, beginning with our ancestors, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, that given the choice between following and trusting and obeying God
and following his way, they chose instead to go their own way. And all of us since then have followed suit. Now, you might think of yourself as a moral person. You might think of yourself and go, I am innately good.
But in fact, Scripture tells us that as we think that, it is only because we are measuring ourself by the improper, if you will, canon. We're not measuring ourself with the proper ruler. Instead, Scripture says the basis of what is good is God.
And he is perfect in all of his ways. He is the very definition of goodness, of kindness, of justice, of righteousness in every way. And Scripture says all of us have fallen short of that standard of perfection.
This is a problem for us because God did not create us to live in sin. He did not create us so that we would not walk with him and that we would not treat others in the way that God would treat others.
Instead, we have brought brokenness into our relationship with God, our relationship with people, and our relationship with the world around us.
You only have to turn on the news for about 5 minutes before you discover the world around us has some serious problems. You only have to spend about 5 minutes with your family at Thanksgiving before you discover we've got some problems here.
Well, what in the world is the solution to the brokenness that we find in this world? We can think of the evil that our world consistently goes through.
You can think about the abuse of children that unfortunately we are hearing about almost every single day on the news. Who can help with that? What is the solution to our broken world?
We think about even our own lives and the times where we have destroyed relationships through lying, through mistreatment, through just general unkindness towards one another. And we wonder what is the fix for this broken world that we are in?
And scripture says it was Jesus that we couldn't reconcile our relationship with God. We couldn't reconcile even our relationships with other humans. Not ultimately.
We fail in ways that there's no way of getting it back. But Jesus came. And 2,000 years ago, he came to that little town of Bethlehem that we sing the carols about.
And as he came there, he came with a mission. You see, Jesus was not just a regular human like you or I know. Scripture tells us that he was 100% God and 100% man.
You say the math doesn't math. That's okay. When you're God, you can cut some corners.
I think we'll cut in some slack. Here, Jesus, fully God, fully divine, fully eternal, entered into humanity.
From that manger all the way through to the cross of Calvary, Jesus lived a perfect sinless life in which he never did anything that was wrong. He never told a lie. He was never unkind.
He was always right and just in everything that he did. He was the only human to ever do so, and he was uniquely perfect. If you will, he was the only one who had a right relationship with God and who also did right by mankind.
However, the religious leaders of the day viewed him as a threat to their own power, and they delivered him over to the political leaders of the day, who also viewed him as a threat to their power.
And so they crucified him, but what they did not know, what was in the eternal plan of God from the beginning, was that Jesus would be the perfect substitutionary sacrifice for your sin and for my sin.
You see, our sin is not just brokenness here and now, though it certainly breaks things in the here and now, our sin is sin against that eternal perfect God. And we have lives with an expiration date. I don't know if you know that.
Do you know that you're not guaranteed to live forever and ever, Roy? Yeah, all of us have an expiration date. And when that expiration date comes, there's only one of two places that we can go in the afterlife.
We can either be reconciled back to God, who made us for a relationship with himself, or we can find ourselves in the place that the Bible describes as hell. It is the place completely bereft of any of God's goodness and grace and love and life.
And the truth is this, every person is going to spend eternity in one of those two places.
This is what Paul enters into in 2 Corinthians 5, that he says in the beginning of chapter 5, he's talking about the joyous hope that is there for the believer, for the Christian in the afterlife.
But he says there in verse 11, therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people.
Paul was not satisfied with personally experiencing a relationship with God through accepting what Jesus did for him on his behalf and turning his life over to Jesus, viewing Jesus as his Lord. He wasn't content with that.
He said, I want to persuade as many people as possible that the way of God is the right way, that the way of Jesus is the only way of life. And so this is what we are called to as Christians.
We can take all of the things that we learned last week about how we are to love other Christians. All of that comes into play when we think about how we love those that do not know Jesus.
What we learned three weeks ago on how Jesus has loved us, all of that comes into play on how we treat others as well. But I want us to focus on our call to love the lost as Christians means nothing less than inviting people into Jesus' kingdom.
How in the world can we say that we love someone else if we do not let them know about the offer of free eternal life that is offered through Jesus Christ alone?
So here today, there's just a few highlights on your handout. First, I want us to see that we ought to care about their souls more than your comfort. How do we love the lost?
We care about their souls more than your comfort. He says, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people. We allow the reality of God's justice, that he is a holy, righteous and just God.
And all of us have missed the mark. And so none of us are able to have that relationship with God outside of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only way to have a relationship with God.
And rejecting Jesus, rejecting the sacrifice that he paid for us, the only other place that we can go is to hell. That is not a popular thing to say in this pluralistic age.
An age where we would hear from popular hosts like Oprah that, okay, all paths, all the different religions, all the different ways to God, it's just paths up a mountain. You take your path, I take mine, and we'll eventually get to the top.
The problem is this, if you will, all religions are paths up the mountain to God, but what are you going to say to him when you get there? The only right path is the path of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for sin.
And so because we have a fear of the Lord, we recognize that there is a need to invite people into the kingdom of God, invite them into reconciliation with God. He says, what we are is plain to God, and I hope it's also plain to your consciences.
He says, we're evangelists, we're doing the best that we can to invite people into relationship with God. He says, I hope you guys recognize that.
He says, we're not commending ourselves to you again, but giving an opportunity to be proud of us so that you may have a reply for those that take pride in outward appearance rather than in the heart.
Here the encouragement is, be proud of those that share their faith, not simply those that are outwardly religious. If you guys have been in church for any length of time, you know the people that they've got all of the religious markers text.
They read through their Bible in gear, they've got the nicest suit and tie, they have never said a cuss word in their 89 years of existence, they've never even seen a beer commercial, and they are just the most religious individuals that you could
ever meet. But what Paul here says is, what is most important is not your outward religious actions, it's not the things that you do or what you wear, what is most important is your relationship with God.
What's most important is your love for other people exemplified by the way that you live your life. In verse 13, he says, if we're out of our mind, it is for God.
If you think that we're crazy because of what we're talking about, in a room this size with this many people, I know that there are some people that do not yet know Christ as their savior. You've never turned your life over to Jesus as your Lord.
You might be going, okay, Bryon, you're crazy. The sound system went out 13 minutes ago, and you're still hooting and hollering. You're nuts.
If I'm out of my mind, it is for God, because I want you to know that you have a home in heaven eternally. I want you to know that you are reconciled to God.
I want you to be able to experience the gift of the Holy Spirit within your life, that you would know God's presence with you at all times. I want you to be able to be a part of a church family. Jesus said that he died for the church.
He gave his blood for the church. And it's not just for some institution. It is for you to have brothers and sisters and spiritual fathers and mothers that are there for you, that love you, that encourage you, that pray for you.
All of it comes through following God. So if I'm crazy, I'm crazy for God, because I want you to know. He says, but if we're in our right mind, it's for you.
What we are proclaiming is not, I assume, that maybe some stuff with Jesus might have happened. And so put your faith in Jerusalem.
No, the entirety of Christianity is based off of an objective fact that you can go to every tomb in Israel and you will not find the King of Glory. He is risen just as he said. But can I ask you today, for so many of us, you know, it can be easy.
You know, this is church. I'm preaching proverbially to the choir. When I say these things, there's some expectation.
I bet he's probably going to say, yeah, I agree with that.
But when it comes tomorrow to your workplace, how many people are you going to interact with that you interact with week after week after week, that you have never once even said that you're a Christian, that you've never invited them to church, that
you've never had a conversation with them about their eternal soul? And can I tell you, that's not just something I'm saying for you guys, it's for me.
I am a little bit more of a, this might shock some of you, I'm a little more of an introvert sometimes. If I know you, I can't, yeah, I'll talk, I'm great with it.
If I don't know you, I like, I want to be respectful, you know, I admire some of Teresa's boldness that she, sorry, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, she's a character. I do not have that instinct, even of myself.
And so what it does is it shuts my mouth that I care more about my comfort, I care more about what people might think of me, that they would think well of me, that they don't go, well, that's my crazy kooky religious neighbor.
I care more about that than I care about the souls of mankind. And as I think about my neighborhood, I think over and over again, God, I have not obeyed you. You have called me to reconcile people to you.
You have called me to announce to them that they can experience eternal life and be part of Jesus' kingdom. And I have shirked my duty. And I wonder how many times we have done the same.
There's a quote that's often mentioned in some of these discussions by famous kind of Vegas magician, Penjolet, that he says, how much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
And for you and I, often we go, well, no, no, no, I don't hate you. I love you. And that's why I'm not telling you.
But if you truly genuinely believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, then it is on you and I that we not keep that a secret. It's one thing to keep a secret if you're like, man, I have some weird health thing.
I've got a boil on my chest or I've got something like that. That's something you can keep to yourself. You don't have to go outside to everyone.
But many of us treat Jesus like some unwanted medical issue that we have. Like, yeah, I live with it every day of my life, but I'm not gonna tell anyone else about it. Can I encourage you, care more about the souls of man than your comfort?
Secondly, I want us to see that we ought to respect them as being worth the death of Christ. We ought to respect the lost as being worth the death of Christ. He says, for the love of Christ compels us.
That is, it confines, it arrests, it constrains us. I can't just like walk forward in this room because there's a bunch of chairs here. I have to go through one of the allotted aisles.
Otherwise, I step over everything, go about two things. This constrains where I go. And what Paul says is the love of Christ tells me what I am to do, what I need to speak, where I need to go.
The love of Christ has told me to go in this direction. He says, since we've reached this conclusion that one died for all and therefore all died. Jesus died for everyone.
Can I get an amen? Amen. It doesn't matter what your sins have been, Jesus' death, his sacrifice is greater.
It doesn't matter if you've just started off in your life and you're five years old or you're 22 years old, God and his sacrifice and he paid on Calvary are enough for you.
If you are 89 years old and you've lived your entire life apart from Jesus, it is never too late to turn over your life to Jesus that you say, you are my Lord, you call the shots, I'm surrendering to you. I accept your forgiveness of my sins.
There is no person to whom we can say Christ did not die for you. But here's the implication. If Jesus died for everyone, then it means everyone died.
Therefore all died. There is no person that is not in need of the gospel message. How does this interact with our love for other people?
Since Jesus died for them, there is no freedom for us to hate those for whom Christ died. Verse 15 says, he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.
If you are a Christian today, if you claim to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus, you have a purpose. Do not spend your life on yourself anymore because it doesn't belong to you, it belongs to him. I love this quote by Charles Spurgeon.
He said, do not ever say of anybody, that person is too bad for me to do anything with him. It is the genius of Christianity to select the worst first, and we should never regard any man as utterly hopeless until he is dead.
As long as the breath is in his body, even if all the devils from hell were also in him, there is enough power in the Lord Jesus Christ to make the whole troop of devils fly. And it is for us to attack those devils in his name.
Jesus Christ having saved us, the salvation of other sinners must be possible. I mentioned often there are people in this room that even two, three, five, ten years ago, you would never have anticipated the walk with Jesus that you have right now.
I have loved getting to hear stories and testimonies about those that were once far away from God, and they knew they were far away from God and actively rejecting him. And yet they came to a saving knowledge of Jesus.
And if God saved you, what in the world makes you think that he's done and that kind of salvation train that it ends with you? No, my friend, we're in a giant game of gospel dominoes.
And if you've been knocked down, it's because you're supposed to knock down someone else as well for the glory of God. Far too often, we treat the lost with disrespect. The way that we speak about those that do not know Christ is with disdain.
I think even in some of the surrounding verses, as we think about the way that we used to look at the world and the way we used to interact with people was in a worldly way, in a fleshly way, that we say, okay, as I'm looking at my finances, is this
person is either a help to my finances or a hurt to my finances. And so, that's how I look at that individual. Perhaps today in America, we might say, okay, is this person, would they identify as Republican or a Democrat?
And so, that's going to determine how I speak about that individual. That's going to determine the words that I use, the descriptors that I use for them.
However, what Paul tells us is we don't know anyone according to a worldly way anymore, because the world has nothing for us. The world passes away at all of its desires, but the word of God endures forever.
And so, I wonder how many times we have so focused on this world and this world's kingdoms and our finances and our loves that we have totally neglected the love of God and the kingdom of God.
And we will spend far too much time arguing with people about the kingdoms that will pass away, and we have not spent any time encouraging them about the kingdom that is to come and that is eternal.
Can I encourage you to speak with respect of those for whom Christ died? I know we have many veterans even in the room and people that are related to veterans. And when someone particularly trashes the troops, you would take offense to that.
You would say, I gave my life to serve, and so as a result, why would you speak against me?
Or if you had someone that you love, that gave their life even in battle for our country, if someone were to demean their sacrifice, you would take some umbrage to them. But can I ask you, Jesus died for the people that you hate.
Jesus died for the people that you can't stop trash. Jesus died for the people that you refuse to forget. How do you think Jesus feels about your disrespect of someone that he gave his life for?
Next, view your job as reconciling, not ridiculing. Reconciling, not ridiculing. He says, from now on then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective.
We see others in light of what Jesus did. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer see him in this way.
We used to look at Jesus as, wow, that's really weird that a Jewish carpenter and teacher 2,000 years ago is still being talked about half the world away 2,000 years later. Well, we once knew Jesus from a worldly perspective.
We don't know him that way anymore. We know him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away and see the new has come. There's a couple of things here. Number one, don't hold others hostage to their past or don't even hold others hostage to their current state because everyone can be made new in Christ.
Lord willing, Bryon Self is not going to be the same person in 2026 than he was in 2025. By the work of the Holy Spirit, I'm praying that I grow. The same is true for every person that we interact with that does not yet know Christ.
You don't know what God will bring about in their life so that for the first time, they might finally be open to hearing about the God who loves them, who died for them, who rose again for them, who offers them full free forgiveness.
But who have you given up on in your witness? Who have you said, they'll never turn around? I'm glad that God didn't have that mindset toward the Apostle Paul.
That on the road to Damascus, as he had arrested so many in Jerusalem, so many Christians in Jerusalem, and as he was on his way to a nearby country to arrest more and to bring them back to Jerusalem to stand trial, that the Lord himself intervened.
And you don't know when the intervention moment of God will be. Our responsibility is, like the man, I believe it's Ammonius, if I remember correctly, I'm looking at past Ron. Is Ammonius the one that was in Syria there?
Okay, great. And Ammonius was the one that he welcomed Paul. And he brought him into the church, and Paul was baptized, and Paul became a believer.
And everyone around thought, there's no way, this was the great persecutor of Christians. But God and the gospel of Jesus Christ is more powerful. So don't give up on anyone.
Realize that your job is joining the hand of Jesus to the hand of lost sinners. That our job is not to ridicule. Our job is not to sow demean and push out individuals that we say, no, you'll never be good enough.
Come back when you've got a few more of your ducks in a row. No, my friend, Jesus didn't wait till you were perfect to accept you, to save you.
And so why in the world do we think, okay, once my kid, once my grand kid, once they stop this addiction, and once they stop sinning this way, and once they break up with that girlfriend that they shouldn't be with, well, then I can bring them back
to church. No, my friend, come with all of your sins and your failures and your addictions and your sicknesses. I love the old hymn that says, if you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all.
Come with all of your brokenness to Jesus Christ, and he is powerful enough to make you a new creation. Verse 18, he says, everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
God reconciled with us. He was perfect, we were imperfect. And if God reconciled with us, then can I tell you today, there is no one with whom you are right in not seeking reconciliation.
If God himself, perfect, holy, reconciled with us as sinners, we have no right to not reconcile with anyone else. Verse 19, that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.
And he's committed the message of reconciliation to us. I love there that phrase, not counting their trespasses against them. That in Jesus, there is full and free forgiveness forever.
And that as Jesus died on the cross, he didn't punish the world for their sins in that moment. Instead, Jesus took the punishment for us.
If Jesus didn't count your trespasses against you on the cross, who are you counting their trespasses against them? Who are you holding your laundry list of complaints about another person?
Maybe for some of you, that other person is lost, but Satan has so blinded you that you can't see that your bitterness against that other person is actually prohibiting you from sharing the gospel with them.
That you can't share the gospel with them because right now you don't love them because you have so much bitterness, you are holding a list of wrongs against another person. But what God has committed to us is the message of reconciliation.
We were at odds with God, not because God doesn't love us, but because we did not love God. Jesus made the way that we could get back to God through accepting what he has done and turning our lives over to him.
And as a result, everyone can be reconciled to God. Here, this message of reconciliation has been given to us. If I were to give a message to Alex and I'd say, okay, Alex, here's the message and I want you to take it back to John in the back.
And you were to just like sit there and not doing anything. We'd be like, okay, you're a terrible messenger. The whole point of a messenger is to carry the message from this point to that point.
How frustrated would you be if every time you tried to send a text, send an email, send a letter, it never actually got to the place it was supposed to go? Can I tell you, you are God's postal office for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And I'm afraid far too often there are a whole lot of lost packages of the gospel in our post office.
We spend so much of our time railing against, hating, and being fearful of those without Christ that we don't have any time or relational equity to share the message with them.
Charles Spurgeon said, it is of little use to be harping on the string of man's imperfection and deceitfulness. It is infinitely better to praise the perfection and faithfulness of God.
And then I love this quote from a song by Casting Crowns that says, Jesus, friend of sinners, open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers. Our job is reconciling, not ridiculing.
And then lastly, as we end the day, show them who Jesus is and what his kingdom loves. Verse 20, he says, we are ambassadors for Christ. You are a representative of the nation of heaven on this earth.
He says, since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. God is not willing that anyone would perish, but that everyone would come to repentance.
Scripture says he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And verse 21 emphasizes this for us. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus on the cross took all of your sin and my sin and the sin of the entire world onto himself, and he became sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. If we're gonna love other people, we need to show them who Jesus is.
In what other way could you actually meaningfully show love to someone else? God is love, as we're told in 1 John 4, and everyone that loves in the way that God does is born of God and knows God.
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. So can I encourage you to love other people by showing them who Jesus is? He is our perfect substitute.
He is our Lord. He is our rescuer. He is the defeater of sin and death and the grave, and he is offering us his kingdom.
Here, as I think about, we are made the righteousness of God. Your love for your fellow Christians? Well, that's part of God's righteousness, his love.
So your love for your fellow Christians, your forgiveness of other people, that's forgiveness that's not coming stemming from you, that comes from your forgiving God, and your kindness, which again, you didn't get from you, that comes from your
creator. Your love for your fellow Christians, your forgiveness and your kindness are gifts from Jesus to draw people to him. That we love as Christ has loved us. Show them who Jesus is through the way you love.
Show them who Jesus is through the way you forgive. Show them who Jesus is by your kindness.
Today, we are called to love the lost, to share the message of Jesus with a lost and dying world, with those that at times might not want to hear it, just as Paul, once Saul, did not want to hear. But we are called to share nonetheless.
And ask for something kind of odd here. If you were saved in the 1970s or before, would you stand? If you accepted Christ as your savior in the 70s or before, would you stand?
You may be seated. If you were saved in the 80s or 90s, would you stand? If you accepted Christ as your Savior in the 80s or 90s?
Okay. May be seated. If you accepted the Lord in the 2000s or the 2010s, would you stand?
You may be seated. If you accepted the Lord in the 2020s, would you stand? May be seated.
Can I ask you today? You might notice, you know, our church size, different amounts of people coming in at one point or another. Is Jesus less powerful at saving people in the 2020s than he was in the 1970s?
No. Is Satan better at stopping God's redemption of sinners today than he was back then? No.
Can I challenge us with this thought? Perhaps it is that we have become, as Christians, self-obsessed, worrying more about frivolities, baseball games, conferences, making ourselves comfortable and happy.
Jesus is just as powerful to save, but we have become lazy and disobedient to the mission. Christ is just as powerful to save, but we have become lazy. Today, you exist on planet Earth to invite others to Jesus' kingdom.
Maybe you're here and you go, okay, well, I could invite others to Jesus' kingdom, but I'm not a citizen myself. I've never turned over my life to Jesus. Can I encourage you?
You can make that choice today. It doesn't require a 12-step plan. It doesn't require some donation amount.
No, as we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, Scripture says that we will be saved. You can do that even today.
If you are saved, if you have confessed Jesus is your Lord, are you inviting others to join in the kingdom of God?
