Preach the Gospel: Faith Comes by Hearing

Praise the Lord, brothers and sisters. Thank God for this new morning he's given us. His house, and on the back sealed with seven seals. Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice. Who is worthy to open the scroll? Do not weep. Behold, the line of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne, and of the four on the throne. Now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals. for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood, out of every tribe and tongue, and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb who has slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them I heard saying. Blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, Amen. And the 24 elders fell down and worshipped him, clips forever and ever. Praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters. He has done so much for us. He has done so much. And he is worthy of our praise. So let's stand up and pray for this service. Lord God, we thank you so much for your love and mercies, for dying on the cross for our sins, Lord, for giving us eternal life through your self- through the salvation you have given us. For shedding your blood on the cross, Lord. You have done so much for us, God. We thank you for this gift of eternal life, Lord, and we praise you, Lord God. We thank you, Lord, and we praise you, Lord. Bless the service in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen. And for our first song we'll be singing a mighty fortress. Almighty for tresses are God. Mortal spread for still. To work us wall, his craft and power are grave and armed with cruelty. On earth is not easy. Did we in our own strength confide? Our striving would be loosing, were not the rimen on our side. The man of God's own choosing just ask that maybe Christ Jesus. The Lord of host his name from H to H the same. And he must win the battle, and all this one with devils fill. Should return to undo us. We will not fear for God hath will. Truth to triumph through us the Prince of Darkness grim. We tremble not. For him his rage we can enter for all his domestic. One little word shall fail him that word above the key. King of glory forever, for endless ages and praise the king of glory. Of glory forever, let good and kinred God this moral life also. The body they make kill God's truth abidets till his kingdom. And for a second song we'll be singing holy, holy, holy Holy holy Lord God early in the morning. Our song shall rise to thee Holy, holy, holy murcifolland. In three persons, blessing trility. We holy holy all the saints are thee casting down their golden crown. Around the glassy sea chair of him and sara fin falling down being. Before thee, who worked and avermore shall be Holy, holy, holy, know the darkness I mean, know the I used. Oh man, thy glory may not see only thou art only there is none. Beside me perfect in power in love and purity. Praise the Lord, my dear brothers and sisters, my dear church, for this morning that we can all come here together to worship his name, to hear his word for today. And I just want to do our Bible reading for this morning. And that's going to be in Psalms 53. And for many of you in the pews, it's going to be in page 818. Uh Psalm fifty three, page eight eighteen, and it says here The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt and have done abominable iniquity. There is none who does good God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. Every one of them has turned aside. They have together become corrupt There is none who does good. No, not one. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God? There they are in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. you have put them to shame, because God has despised them. Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion, when God brings back the captivity of his people, let Jacob rejoice, and Israel be glad. Praise God. And now we'll have Brother Daniel come up and sing a song for us for this morning. And then right after that we'll have Pastor Tim come up and say a couple announcements. God bless. I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord. Tender voice like thine can peace suffer. I need thee, oh I need thee ever. Every hour need thee, O bless me now, my Savior. I come to thee. I need the stay thou nearby tempt. I need thee, oh I need thee. I come to thee. I need thee ever in joy or pain. Come quickly. And abide or life face. Indeed, thee op bless me now, my savior. I come to thee. Thee every hour teach me thy will in thy rich promises in before. Off ill I need thee thee every our indeedy who bless me now myself. Savior, I come to thee. Well, praise God, friends. Uh I think just from the beginning of the service until now, you know, God has been. Talking to you and me and trying to get our attention. And how Dimitri read in Psalm 53 these words, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. There are many many smart people in this world. And they say there is no God. There could be a lot of smart fools But a wise person knows that there is God because the wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord. And over here, the reason why this fool is saying there is no God because down the passage it says they are corrupt. They are corrupt. And friends, we once were those fools, yet we were able to Accept the calling of Christ and make him our Lord. And how we heard the song, I need you every hour. May we live that kind of life where we need our God every hour. Where we need our God every hour. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. But I'm going to rephrase this. I'm not adding to the Bible. I'm just gonna flip it. I'm gonna say the wise has said in his heart, there is God And the fact that we know that there is God, the fact that we believe in Him, that's already a trait of a wise person. Blessed be you. Blessed be everybody here. We're going to have our meet and greet, but before that, um I just wanted to do a quick announcement. So we were supposed to cook at the shelter this past week, but uh Frank told us The main chef told us there that, hey, listen, uh we have too much food. We need to get rid of it before it goes bad. We did buy some food that is perishable and um that's mainly vegetables. There is broccoli, there is peppers, carrots, so if anybody needs those things, you can take them home before they go back. Uh like all the other stuff we were able to freeze, but at least that um you are able to take home. So I was gonna be in the gym in the big freezer. If you need some peppers, some broccoli, or some carrots, just grab a bag. And right now, let's take this few minutes to meet and greet and get back into our seats because Brother Vlad will be taking the stage. Amen. I think quality will go through that thing. Oh well I'm gonna use a bunch of people. Good morning, church. Uh I got um a topic to share with you guys today. And it's um I'll start with this quote. It's really, it's famous quote. I think most of you heard it, maybe even said it. I know I've said it myself. And it's preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words. It's attributed to Francis of Assisi, although there's no really proof that he actually said those words. But I kind of have an issue with this quote. I don't feel like although it's good sounding quote, but I don't feel like it's necessarily biblical Because here it in this in this expression it says that we should pretty much preach by our works, and sometimes if we need to, we should use the words But we know the Bible says that hearing comes, faith comes by hearing, not by seeing. So in a way it contradicts it. Although I do think it's it's a good it's a good quote. Um it does have truth to it, but it's not necessarily what we see in the Bible Not necessarily what we see the apostles did or Jesus did or the great commission that was left to the church The issue I have with this with this quote, although I've said it myself before too, and I thought it was great, then I start thinking about it And I'm going like, well, hold on. It's just pretty much says, you know, you should be a good neighbor, you should be a good coworker, be good classmates, right? um live proper, godly life and people just gonna start coming around and you know asking you about about your faith and they wanna come to your church. But I think most of you notice that in your life that's not the fact, right It's your neighbors are not coming over and saying like hey can I come to your church with you even though you could be a great neighbor and even though you might you know mold along because Your property and their property meet together. Um, you know, when they go out of town, you might even look over their home and they trust you and stuff like that. But unless you actually start sharing the faith People are not not coming to knowledge of Christ just by our good living. So that's why in a way I have a, like I said, I have an issue with this expression And for a lot of people that's when they hear that and they're saying, you know what, that's a good passage, and they implement it in their life. And so instead of sharing our faith, we just live, you know, we live a goodly life, godly life, and that's where it stops. It kind of gives license for people not to preach and not to share their faith and not to share their gospel. But as we all know, like I'm repeating myself now that there's places of work maybe that we've been for years or school or or uh neighborhoods we lived in. And unless we start talking to people about our faith, unless we start challenging people, unless as we heard earlier today, right, Fool said there is no God in his heart, unless we start uh dropping the seeds of truth in their life, they're gonna remain those fools who remain to believe that there is no no God. And uh one, if we look through the lives of Apostles and life of Jesus, we see that that's not what they have left for us as an example. And it's interesting that the word of God has such a power that even if you don't live the godly life, but you preach, it's still able to bring people to salvation I mean, of course, we become hypocrites, we become like Pharisees, right, if we don't live what we preach. But look what Jesus said in Matthew about Pharisees. He says, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do, for they preach, but do not practice. So we can see even person who does not live the godly life, but preaches still has an effect. God can use um uh people like that because we see Pharisees They knew the truth. They just didn't apply it for themselves. They did not abide by that truth, did not live by that truth. But Jesus says, listen to the words they're saying. Listen to the what they're preaching and what they're teaching because there is truth into that. But do not do works they do. So even if person does not live the life but preaches, it could still have an effect. It could still um How I'd say that because most people do not know the truth of gospel, right? Do not understand who Jesus is, they don't understand uh the consequences of sin. So even if person is not Living himself. But he starts pointing those things out. The Holy Spirit does the work, right? It's not that we the safe people, but it's the the Holy Holy Spirit does the work in the in the life of person We know that Jesus he lived a sinless life, right? He performed miracles. He healed people. He brought people back from death. But what else did he do? He also preached. He preached always. He gathered people around him. So it was not enough to just perform miracles. And people like Nicodemus, they came to me to him and he said We know you come from God. Why? Because of the miracles, right? But because the works you do. They understood that. But that was even in Jesus' life, that was not enough. He didn't stop at that. People did know that he was a man of God, but he continued preaching and teaching. And in Romans, this is a kind of where I would base this topic on Romans 10, 13-17. It is written, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Even as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tiding of good things. But they did not all hearken to the glad tidings. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report, so belief comes of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. So we see in a way this you know direct contradiction to that expression that I read in the beginning that it's not we should do you know live good life and talk sometimes. He directly says that we need to always talk. Now our life need to, you know, prove or need to be exemplary because then like I said we're gonna end up being like those Pharisees And for this um for this church, I mean this is not a novel idea because we know how much of our church um main idea is to evangelize and that's why we do evangelism classes, right? That's why we have Bible studies multiple times a week. So we see and understand the importance of understanding the word of God, known word of God, sharing word of God. Now with all that information that we able to get in church through classes, through Bible studies, how much of this are we actually doing in our life? How much of sharing the gospel are we doing? Because we can come here, we can get all this great information. We can talk about the fool who said there's no God in his heart. But what have we done in order to reach the heart of that fool? What are we doing in our daily life? So we would not want to take that expression. Quote from the uh words of Apostle Paul, where he says the faith comes by hearing. And if we are not out there you know, preaching and sharing, people will not know and understand the truth. We can see I want to throw some passages that I have uh highlighted about what were the apostles doing or what Christ was doing as the foundation for us. So Jesus says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. It's written in Matthews. So to make disciples, we need to teach people. In Mark, it says, go in all the world, preach the gospel to every creature Jesus did not tell us to only live a godly life, but we see over and over he tells us to go and preach the gospel. Apostles after uh after Jesus' resurrection and ascension, we we went through Acts in our Bible study. And uh in Acts 5. 42 it says, every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. And as we know after the church was starting to get persecuted, everybody spread and started going to different towns. And what did they do? Those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. So the the word did not remain in Jerusalem. The persecution came, and that was the way for God to start dispersing his disciples, dispersing his believers. uh around around the world, around the area, um and eventually you know you reach to all ends of the earth. So godly life, it supports our message, but it does not replace the commitment that we have to preach the gospel. So I want to encourage everybody, the places of work, the places of school, our neighborhoods, our neighbors, it's it's always important to preach and share Like yesterday I was walking from the from the pool with my daughter and there were some LDS missionaries walking down the street and they stopped me and they started talking about their faith to me You know, that was really interesting. These are young young guys. I mean I mean they look like they're not even 18 yet, but I I think you have to be 18 to go on the mission. Uh and here they are, they're actually doing that what we're reading about. And I started talking to them, you know, and I said that I don't agree with your theology. Uh but you do live exemplary lives and they do I do they do have that going for them. A Mormon church has um uh a lot of rules, um a lot of traditions, and and they're good to live uh they live good moral lives, but they do lack the truth And that was kind of my point with them, that you do have the life, but the gospel that you preach is not the gospel of Christ. And uh they wanted to come back and you know see maybe talk and told them where I live so we'll see if we'll have I'll have that opportunity to be able to share with them and not just, you know, say these things from the pulpit. Uh which we all know, but actually implement them in our life. And I know I'm not saying anything new here, right? We all know this. But sometimes it's good to be reminded. Sometimes it's good to You know, we think and maybe know people in our life uh at our work where sometimes, you know, maybe we're I don't know, it's not necessarily ashamed, but maybe scared, not sure how to start the conversation People already know that you're Christian, but you know we're not really willing to step out of that comfort zone. But that is what is left for all of us. Because how it says how will they hear if they will not be sent? Well, I think Jesus already sent us. He said he said go to all the nations and preach the gospel, right? So we do not need a special invitation. It's not only for the preachers, it's not only for the ministers, it's for every one of us. And and we know this truth and we know that, but I hope that the classes that we've done, evangelism classes, the Bible study where we're going through, especially when went through Acts, a lot of this information was in there. that we're actually able to implement that and start start doing that in our lives. And so we can start seeing these pews start filling with those people that we sharing with, bringing those that we work those that we go to school for. Let's go out and start doing that because I think um we already have plenty of information. I think we're fairly prepared for for this next step, but now we just need to start going out there and sharing the gospel, inviting people to church. And so that great commission that's given to us is being fulfilled in our midst. Amen. Lord, we're thanking you for this morning that you've given us giving us your time for Commands and the previous preach and teach our disciple. How the God we thank you, Lord Jesus. for this service Lord for this uh message that you are putting on my heart Lord God and it is something that we need to hear and it is something that we need to apply in our lives I pray, Lord God, that you give us courage, you give us strength, and you give us wisdom, Lord God, to be able to go and preach the gospel, to share with all those who surround us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. And for our last song we'll be singing, Come Thou Fout. Come thou, fount of every blessing, to my heart to see thy grace, streams of mercy never cease. Call for songs of that's race. Teach me some melious song Sung by flaming tons of. Praise the mount I fixed up on it Mount of God's unchanging love. Here I raise my head. Annezer hither by thy help uncom and I owe by thy good pleasure safely to a bride. That home Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God He to rescue me. From danger, interpost his precious blood. Oh to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constantly. Straight to me, let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it grown to leave the God I love. Here's my art. Take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts of love. Praise God. Praise God, friends. Our service has come to the end. It's a little short this morning, but the message was strong. And how many of us are going to apply it this week? You know, we heard it and we know it. But if we have that opportunity, let's apply it. It's interesting because Um a while back I started uh praying these words, Lord, send me To those that need to hear your gospel or send them to me. And somehow, every time I pray, either someone comes to me You know, just randomly hanging out in the park and they start talking out of nowhere, and I'm like, okay, that's a cue Or I have the courage to tell someone when, you know, I'm I'm filling up my gas tank. Yes, I still have a diesel vehicle. You know, I'm not 2080 yet. Yeah, yeah. It takes time to fill and it's not electric. But uh, you know, it's it's these kind of opportunities that God gives us to go and preach the gospel And the pulpit is just one Sunday, but we have six more days in the week. And that's where the real work gets done So may God give us that boldness, that strength, that courage to go out and preach the gospels for the kingdom of God's expansion. Not our kingdom, but his. I'm going to ask again how many of us are going to actually do that this week, but you know you can answer that for yourself and take those opportunities. Uh does anybody have any needs? Yes, Melvin? Yeah we uh our son had an accident. Oh no, okay So we'd like to pray for Samuel. Samuel. Okay, we'll pray for Samuel. Anybody else have any needs or thankfulnesses? Okay, if not, let's pray. Lord God, we thank you, God, for the power of the Holy Spirit just guiding this service this morning, Lord Jesus That you are touching the hearts, Lord, God of all of us, Lord. And if there's somebody here, God, that hasn't fully committed his life. To you yet, Lord God. I pray stir thy heart. Don't leave that heart alone, God, but keep on knocking until they open, Lord God. And I pray, Lord. God, give us the boldness and the courage to go and preach your word because your word has the power to save, Lord God. Your word has the power to renew and to restore, Lord God. And let us be those instruments that you use to spread the gospel, Lord God, where every opportunity we have, Lord. We also pray for Samuel, Lord. You see, God, this accident, Lord, you see everything, Lord. Nothing is hidden from your sight. I pray, God, for healy pun Uh God for healing upon him. May his body have full restoration. May it be quick, Lord God. Heal his body and heal his heart, Lord. And may you bless him in his life In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For your kingdom, your power, and glory forever are yours. Amen. Be blessed, everyone.