Reaching the Lost: The Church's Call to Evangelize

reading Psalm 100 ver four which States enter his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise give thanks to him and praise His name and um this verse you know it's a beautiful call to worship and it's inviting the congregation to enter into the presence of God and uh you know with an attitude of gratitude and and praise uh so with that being said let's stand up and pray Lord God we thank you for this day that you given us Lord for this time that you have given us God so we are able to come to this service Lord and to praise your name God and to hear from your word Lord we ask you fill this service with the Holy Spirit God help us Lord God to take your word and to put it into our hearts God and to practice it and to live it in our daily lives in Jesus name we pray amen good evening brothers and sisters our first song that we'll be singing will be with all I am and then we'll transition to Lord I offer my life life to [Music] [Applause] [Music] you your I commit again with all I am for you Lord You Hold My World in the palm of your hands and I am yours forever Jesus I believe in you Jesus I belong to you you're the reason that I live the reason that I sing with all I [Music] am I walk with you wherever you will go through tears and joy I'll trust you and I will live in all of your ways and your [Music] prises [Music] forever Jesus I I [Music] Believe In You Jesus I belong to you you're the reason that I live the reason that I sing Jesus I Believe In You Jesus I belong to you you're the reason that I live the reason that I see with all I [Music] am [Music] I will [Music] worship I will worship you I will [Music] worship I will [Music] worship you I will worship I Will Worship You Jesus I [Music] Believe In You Jesus I belong to you you're the reason that I live the reason that I see Jesus I Believe In You Jesus I will to you you're the reason that I am the reason that I see all of [Music] all that I am all that I have I lay them down before you oh Lord all my regrets all my aaim the joy and the I'm making them yours Lord I offer my life to you everything I've been through use it for your glory and GL Lord I offer my days to you lifting my praise to you as a pleasing [Music] sa Lord I offer you my love in the past yet unseen wishes and dreams that are yet to come true all of my hopes all of my plans my heart and my I'm lifted to you Lord I offer my life to you everything I [Music] it for your glory Lord I offer my days to you lifting my praise to you as aing [Applause] [Music] sa Lord I offer you one Lord I offer my life to you everything I For Your Glory and Lord I offer my days to you lifting my praise to you as a pleasing sa Lord I offer [Music] my praise God brothers and sisters I feel like this Pulpit is becoming my best friend but praise God for that I want to start off by bringing an example of one of God's phenomenon in nature and it's it's called metamorphosis and we know that the caterpillar almost magically gets transformed into a butterfly and it's a very interesting process starting off from uh a butterfly just laying eggs on a leaf and then the eggs hatch into a caterpillar which is the larvae stage of the butterfly and in that stage they have a Rous appetite where they consume almost everything in their sight and it's mostly leaves and plants material uh once the caterpillar has reached a certain size it finds a good spot and forms something called a Crysis or what's called a cocoon and inside the Cocoon the butterfly undergoes some serious changes and the cells literally transform into new adult form and after a few weeks or months the butterfly comes out of the Cocoon and slowly starts to spread its wings and fly today I I'd like to call my sermon a transformed heart and I'd like through I'd like to go through the stages of how God transforms the heart and let's read from Ezekiel 36: 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you I will remove from you Your Heart of Stone and give you a heart of Flesh and also Jeremiah 17:9 the heart is deceitful above all things and Beyond cure who can understand it I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind to reward each person according to their conduct according to what their deeds deserve we see here that naturally our hearts are wicked deceitful and also full of sin and God God calls this the Heart of Stone and before you start to fully 100% commit your life to God your heart is also like this A Heart of Stone and one of the greatest examples that we can see in the Bible um of this is Paul and before he was actually called Paul he was called Saul and um Paul literally persecuted Christians every chance he got even traveling to other cities to hunt them down and to try to kill them and we can read this from acts 9:1 Saul still breathing threats and murder against the Disciples of the Lord went to the high priest and asked for letters to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any belonging to the way men or women he might bring them bound to Jerusalem and moving further down to chapter 3 or uh verse 3-6 as he neared Damascus on his journey suddenly a light from Heaven flashed around him he fell to the ground and Heard a Voice say to him Saul why do you persecute me Saul asks who is speaking and the reply is I am Jesus whom you are persecuting now get up and go into the City and you will be told what you must do and from there on um Paul was actually blinded and led into a city called Damascus to meet a man uh which name was ananas so he could pray over him and help him see again and through that Paul's heart was changed and we see he became one of the greatest disciples and for some people one of of their greatest heroes from the Bible and our hearts in its most human form are wicked and made of stone and we must understand this condition and the only way to be transformed is by God turning our hearts into flesh uh which is also said in Ezekiel 36:26 I'll give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you I'll remove from you Your Heart of Stone and give you a heart of Flesh we have a promise from God that he can put a new spirit in US and make our hearts flesh and in order to do that we must completely repent before God surrender and change our lives 180 degrees and when you look at your life uh you think your sin is bad I mean Paul literally hunted down Christians killed them and once God changed him he became one of the greatest men in the Bible to ever be known God can do the same exact thing to you and we need to receive Christ as our our Lord and savior and from there we receive the Holy Spirit um the helper that was basically sent down from us uh sent down to us from heaven and it was meant to help us in our lives and because in this world we wouldn't be able to do any of this alone so that's why we need a helper the Holy Spirit and the holy spirit gives us characteristics that we need as Christians and it says in Galatians 5:22 but the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace forbearance kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such things there is no law now brothers and sisters I I also want to mention that just because you go to church or you serve in a Ministry or just because you do good works does not mean you have completely surrendered your life to Christ you have to 100% fully commit and I also kind of wanted to share a little story about how God showed me this in my personal life and uh some of you may know by profession I'm a businessman and I've been a businessman uh since a quite a young age and fairly early on in my life I I saw quite a bit of success and before you know it I was making more money than anyone my age or more than a lot of adults even and I had employees and a lot of people depending on me and my life became so saturated with business and it was really the only thing that was on my mind or at least most of the time and I got quite used to that life and God saw that it was really the only thing that I was putting my energy towards so one day I had a lot of different things happen to me in my business a lot of bad things literally overnight and I was basically making no money and just like that my income streams they were paused and there became there became quite a journey for myself and had a lot of different issues start to happen you know I couldn't make payroll I started to go into debt I had a bunch of taxes that I owed and even some legal battles and on top of that I had some personal issues that the start to begin and just it felt like my whole life was starting to collapse on top of me and I never thought I'd be that guy and you know it's it's in the darkest times when you start to actually seek God and from there I was humbled I was being down so much that I started to see God in all parts of my life and and I repented I started to read the Bible more I started to Listen to Only Christian music listen to sermons and God really started to work on my heart and he completely transformed my life to where some people will think I completely became a new person so there was some time that went by and and you know those problems they slowly started to get resolved and God was helping me and all of a sudden everything started to go well again and guess what what happened I slowly started to forget God and day by day my heart strayed away further from God and you know we tend to forget God when times are at the peak and this whole process is start to completely repeat itself again and I had a bunch of issues happen way worse than even before and you know I found myself laying in bed in the morning and I couldn't even get my legs to hit the floor to begin my day because you know I didn't want to step into to like the misery that I was living and and life is just so dark with without God brothers and sisters it really is depressing and I was questioning God why is this happening to me again and from there I decided to take a three-day fast I started praying you know in order to cleanse myself spiritually and ask God for help again and the first night God sent me an answer and I had had a dream and and the dream kind of went like this so I was sitting in a hospital room and and there was a doctor and there with me and the doctor was giving me a DI diagnosis of a bad heart so they decided to start looking for a new heart for me and I was pacing back and forth throughout the hospital deciding whether I should get a heart transplant and after some time passed a doctor came out and gave me a that would work for me and it was like wrapped in this special material and I placed the heart next to mine you know pacing back and forth and I was questioning whether I should get this new heart and then there was this person that started to walk past me and that person said I think you should really get a new heart and I think that was Jesus and when I woke up that night from my dream I realized that God was speaking to me and I needed a new heart and I really question that because I thought I was a good Christian I came to church a lot I served in some Ministries but that was not enough and then the verse came to me from Matthew 6: 24 no one can serve two masters for either he'll hate the one and love the other or else he'll be loyal to the one and despise the other you cannot serve God in mmon and my man in was worldly possessions and Brothers and Sisters You could also have a Mamon and anything that you put above God is what's called a Mamon and it says no one can serve two masters for either he'll hate the one and love the other or else he'll be loyal to the one and despise the other you cannot be 98% for God and 2% for the world you cannot have almost your whole body in the kingdom of God and your pinky toes in the world you have to be 100% to one master or the other and after I analyze my life I saw that there was areas where I was still in the world and once we start to spiritually mature the smaller things start to become more and more known to you you know e even the smallest things that it comes down to maybe a word that you shouldn't have said or maybe a song that you shouldn't have listened to or a way that you talk to someone or whatever it is but God starts to purify us because he loves us and Proverbs 3:1 says my son do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke because the lord loves because the Lord disciplines those he loves as a father the son he Delights in and God would rather have you be the brokest worn down be in person so you can make it to heaven that is why he refines us like a fine metal because he loves us let me tell you when I lost it all that's when I gained it all and I started to see clearly and it taught me an important lesson for the rest of my life to put God first and to dedicate my life 100% to him not 99% 100% And it's a massive sacrifice because you know you cannot live like the world anymore and you know I don't regret a single thing because it's all worth it because it gives us a eternal life with God where we will praise Him eternally and I'd like to end off by reading from Mark 8:35 for whoever wants to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it Brothers and Sisters Let's really examine our lives and see if our hearts need to be made of Flesh if it needs to repent before God and ask you know ask ask for the holy spirit to guide you to serve god with a new heart you know it's not a promise that we will have an easy life but with Christ it's the most joyful life you'll ever know and with that I'd like to call us to prayer amen Lord God we thank you for the word that you've given us Lord for the service that we're able to come to God for your teachings in the Bible God and we ask you to help us to have a heart of Flesh Lord to serve you to dedicate Our Lives 100% to you God to put you first in all parts of our lives in Jesus name we pray amen amen amen and together we'll stand and we'll be singing a song called the savior is [Music] waiting the SA your is waiting to enter your heart why don't you let him come in there's nothing in this world to keep you apart what is your answer today time after time he has wa before now [Music] again to see if you're will to open the door oh he wants to come in if you'll take one step toward the Savior my friend you'll find his arms open wi receive him and all of your darkness is within your heart [Music] you time after time he has waited before now he is waiting again to see if you're will to open the oh how he wants to come [Music] in time after time he has waited before and now he is waiting [Applause] again to see if you're will to open open the door oh how he wants to come in oh how he wants to [Music] come praise God my dear friend right now we're going to have some announcements and um brother Doug you can already make your way up here uh he will be kind of sharing his Bible study that is going to be starting next week it's going to be the first is going to be from 10:00 a.m. and the second is going to be from 4:00 p.m. so here let me get you a there I he's healed you see a miracle today brothers and sisters hi my name is Doug Lawrence many of you already know me but in case you don't please find me afterwards and I'd like to meet you and I'm easy to find I don't exactly blend so the class is called the underground now it's not the underground Church exactly um that's a very honored position I always thought that the most authentic church is the persecuted church as a matter of fact in uh 2 Timothy 3:12 it says indeed all who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted it's actually a very bad sign if you never have any trouble anyway it's a new class I'll talk more about the title The Underground then uh like Tim said 10:00 a.m. and 4 pm that's because we want to see who shows up at 10: who shows up at 4: if for example nobody shows up at 10: everybody comes at 4: that gives us a clue to just do it at 4 but uh I'm going to have coffee it's going to be decent coffee it's not going to be super duper like youth fundraiser coffee like that um but I actually thought about different names I thought about calling it coffee with Calvin or uh lattes with Luther or um tea with Tindale pie with Piper spartac with Sproul but I I didn't want it to be confusing I didn't want it to sound like it's a a coffee shop it's a serious class it's um it's four people who want greater depth particularly those who wish to be a pastor an elder preacher teacher Deacon or if someday you think you'll be married to a pastor preacher teacher Elder Deacon or if your children are pastors Elders deacons preachers or teachers or if you just want to know what God wrote to his church officers I'm going to do a series on the the books of First Timothy second Timothy Titus and philimon and I'm calling the series a letter from the King to his generals because in fact that's what it is it's not written to the church in general so much as this is starts with a letter from Paul sent by Jesus to his son in the faith Timothy and this is actually a direct communication to all who will serve in the church all who will be up here and I see that I H we have in this service already a strong representative of the congregation you know when we're going to do a song this whole side goes and comes up here here that's a really good sign but it reminds me of some concerts I did where the orchestra on the stage had more people than we had in the audience anyway seriously if you want more depth we can take a little more time it's uh it's going to be a 45 minute class and it has to start on time bring your Bible because the key is the holy spirit Illuminating when you see the words of scripture so bring your Bible we're going to look up stuff we're going to get serious and it's going to be really fun and if anybody wants to improve on my coffee I'm looking for a volunteer see you then next week okay brothers and sisters well you know thank you dog and uh everybody choose their time I'm choosing 4 um 10:00 a.m. you know I'm still waking up anyways no but um yeah so I think it's going to be good for our spiritual walk you know because we learn by the word how to live a righteous life okay and um we have a couple more announcements so next week is opening up the gym open gym so um it's going to be like this from 7 to 8 p.m. there's going to be activities for kids sports for kids so families with kids you guys bring them um like I'll organize something I have a team that doesn't know yet uh that they're going to be on my team but they're kind of getting an idea uh and so we'll we'll organize some sports for your kids and then from 8 to 10: it's already doll time the kids have to go to bed uh so the mom's going to take them home and it's time for the real stuff um but we'll see you guys next week from 7 at the open gym also if you guys got these cards um today uh you can see a QR code here that you can scan with your phone camera this actually leads you to a to a website that uh brother brother Vlad he's in charge of and it's a resource page for me you uh the person that is just learning about God and um if you guys want to check it out it's very simple we try to not complicated it's um uh sermons music then we have live radio uh that we included and what else is there line sermons music radio devot devotionals podcasts um and we're working on some more things but hey if you guys have any ideas uh bring them to Vlad um and we'll for sure try to implement them okay and um our other announcement is that tithing it starts today so during the last song there's going to be tithing and um you know it's the church we know that there's tithing in the morning um and then at youth service on Fridays there's tithing there um so don't feel that uh you you just have to give all the time um over here uh this is more for uh this money is going to be used for like local outreaches so that time where our church did for the local community the uh clothing Drive uh we had some business buiness sponsor that but over here example we can also include our church funds uh maybe some business sponsor and make these events where it can reach more widows orphans single mothers um and stuff like that and of course um there's people that come over there from all sorts of uh like just poor uh broken literally every time we did it we did it a couple times with the Youth and one time with the church well maybe not every time but most of the time there's people that come here on their cars and they can't even go home because their car doesn't even drive anymore that's how poor they are um and so I think we as a church we have to give like the Bible teaches us a true uh religion is to help the widows and the poor people um and we as a church that's Our obligation so that's going to be for the announcements but today we have a number um Emma she decided to share with us a poem so Emma please come up when the world comes crashing in and Chaos rules my mind I turn my heart to you Lord and pure sweet peace I find you lift me out of trouble you comfort me in pain you nourish heal and cleanse me like cool refreshing rain in times of joy and Bliss when things are going right you lift me even higher and fill me with delight you listen to my prayers you hear my every plea I'm safe because I know you're always there for me well I'm back can't get rid of me praise God my dear friends I think brother Vlad has joined the uh crying preacher club and I'm happy that I'm not all alone you know every time I Zach comes out to say a word I'm like man that brother knows me CU he cries the crying preacher Club praise the Lord but it's not us it's the Holy Spirit right praise God for that well you know my dear friends um this topic has been on my heart for already a while but I've been kind of debating about it because I'm like ah you know maybe we're not ready to hear it yet um like I felt like it wasn't the time yet but this week um in a Brother's meeting it was a confirmation to me that you know our church is ready to hear this and I think you know even though maybe not everybody will agree but I'll say this that not everybody always agreed you know that's why God he didn't use everybody when the 500 plus disciples at first were following him only 12 were left because they believed in what Jesus had to offer so not everybody's going to understand but it's okay you know because for some people it takes time it takes time but I'm going to be preaching today how Christ teaches us to reach to the Lost um and you know the this past 5 years I think especially our church God has been really good to us yes I mean right now I shouldn't be here right now I shouldn't be here but God has been good there we go Vlad there we go brother because it's all God you know it's all God and we cannot you know when God is good to us we cannot be so selfish just to take it for ourselves we have to share with others how God how good our God is because there are a lot of people in this world that don't know how good he is because they were raised in a home different from ours and how lucky are we that we were raised in a Christian home but not everybody had that chance that's why God has the church to reach those that weren't raised in a Christian home right because that's what he did so I'd like us to open up to Luke 53 31 and 32 Luke 5 31-32 and Jesus answered them those who are well have no need of a doctor or a physician but those who are sick I have not come to call their righteous but Sinners to repentance and then Matthew 9:13 it says go and learn what this means I desire Mercy not sacrifice a lot of us think that okay if I sacrifice my time I am fulfilling the will of God if I'm doing this this this this this this this but if my heart is hard to towards those that are say outside of the church I'm not merciful to them God says listen I desire Mercy more than what you're doing for me in the church for I came not to call the righteous but the Sinners you know when we look at the life of Jesus Christ the Bible says that he was the the light that came on the earth he was the light that when he went he was like a magnet people were flocking to him because he was giving them something nobody else could he was giving them a chance to be saved and a chance to be free who from us can save a person you know maybe we can save a person from a car accident hey don't drink because drinking you can you know leads this this this but we cannot with our own strength save a person for salvation to be with Christ only God can do that and when people don't know that thousands and millions and multi-millions are leaving this Earth not knowing Christ but when Christ came what did he say I didn't come to call the righteous to repentance they're already saved I came to call the sinners and sometimes we get caught up in this you know like we all serve in a church in in some sort of way but if we only kind of serve in our small circle and not go out we're just preaching and singing to the already saved people here are already saved and my sermon or the song or the poem right now it's to the saved and yes the church is made of the saved but also the Christ Church church is made up of Sinners who need repentance to be saved but my question is how can such a holy God even want to be with the Sinners he's holy he's holy he has no sin because in the Old Testament we know that that only Moses could go up to that mountain because every body else was not worthy but over here Jesus Christ is sitting with the Sinners and the tax collectors and who is the one to tell him first that you're doing wrong it's the Pharisees and Pharisees it's only a bad word because the Bible speaks kind of negative about them but but before it was just uh uh Christian very educated uh Christian Scholars or teachers or people even that were the ones telling him Jesus what are you doing but you [Music] know Jesus was getting ridiculed by them you know he was getting constantly harassed to the point where they wanted to uh throw him off the cliff I mean what kind of Christians is that right that's like that's like going way too far there was a time where they wanted to push Jesus off a cliff sometimes you know religion can go way too far but Christ's mission was not to call the righteous because they are already right righteous but his W his mission was not even to walk on water or show Miracles or even die but it was to save The Sinner and die for him to save The Sinner and die for him because that person Jesus Christ wanted that person to be with him in heaven and my dear friends Jesus was that light at that time he was that magnet but right now we don't see Jesus that light walking around like he did 2,000 years ago that's why he left it up to us that's why he left it up to the church to do the work that he did because what kind of a like if the church just doesn't I would say do what Jesus was doing in his life I mean what kind of rewards is it uh bringing to to heaven heaven needs new Souls right Heaven needs new Souls Heaven needs new Souls and Jesus invested in us so that we can bring him his wage you know I'll say this um like in my job I hire people right and um to hire somebody it's free it's free to that person it's free to me he doesn't pay me to get hired it's free but if that person that I hired is not doing his job he doesn't get paid salvation is free we did not pay for it but for rewards we have to work for rewards we have to work and we know that the Bible it talks about where it says for one person that comes to Jesus and gets saved the whole Heaven rejoices you know and and how does that happen well we can read that the whole Heaven rejoices wow that's huge but imagine this imagine Zach um he he uh became a US citizen he became a US citizen and all over the news all over Instagram and Facebook and all the social media these like this main uh page Zach became a US citizen all over the US and all over the world you know I would probably be reading man who is this Zach guy that he's so popular you know I want to know more about him obviously that doesn't happen here because there's thousands and thousands of uh people becoming US citizens and nobody really pays attention to that but in heaven that's how it is when you become a citizen of Heaven the whole Heaven rejoices so imagine if you living life cruising through life you know took that gift of Salvation and just kept it kept it tight until Jesus came and then you make it to Heaven well yeah you got saved but there's nobody there's not even one soul that you took along what's the reward what's what's the reward for God to say good job my son or my daughter I mean yeah you're saved but you get no reward but if you even brought one Soul one through your entire life one Soul maybe you told somebody about Jesus Christ maybe you're a coworker or somebody at school it can be it can be anywhere maybe even on the internet and that person comes to Christ the whole Heaven rejoices imagine the reward that's going to be given to you imagine the reward for one person but if you brought two if you brought three if you brought a 100 you know too many Christians are sitting on God's hours you know they're just sitting on his hours they got hired they got the job and they're just sitting around and for God that doesn't I don't think it uh benefits heaven when we're just sitting around so I'm going to challenge everybody today those cards these welcome cards right it has our website on there you each got one throughout the week don't sweat about it don't feel like you're pressured but just give it to somebody just give it to somebody pass it down pass it down you're you're at a restaurant Say Hey I want you to have this card you're at your work hey I want you to have this card check it out you know because at the end of the day if we call ourselves followers of Christ that's exactly what Christ did he came for the Sinners to to have them accept him and that is the duty of the the church we took his position he invested into us to do his work and may his name be praised and glorified in Jesus name amen let's pray Lord God we thank you we thank you for this time God Lord we thank you for the messages that have been spoken Lord God we we thank you that you're so good to us Lord you're so good Lord God in the hardest times you always show up and let us be that light let us be that magnet to where people they flock to Lord because Lord God you're the one that gives them that hope that salvation and let us be that magnet that leads them to to that Lord may we not be sitters but doers of your word and bless each one in this place place in Jesus name we pray amen amen and I'm going to read uh for from second Corinthians 9 verse 6-8 remember this whoever SWS sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever SWS generously will also reap generously each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give not Rel reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times having all that you need you will abound in every good work and brothers and sisters let us think about these things give cheerfully if you feel obligated to give it's better not to give but if you have it in your heart to give then uh bless the church and the ministry with it praise God and we'll be singing for our last song like eagles [Applause] [Music] oh my soul do you not know have you not heard it's been told from the beginning the Lord your God is on your side oh my soul don't be afraid hope in the Lord by his rightousness and power he will strengthen he will guide and I will s on Wing like eagles H by the hand of God I will run and not grow tiredest day my call for the Lord is never wey this ways are beyond my thoughts I will trust in him with all my [Music] heart oh my soul do you not know have you not heard it's been told from the beginning the Lord your God is on your side oh my soul don't be afraid hope in the Lord by his rightous and power he will strengthen he will gr andng like eagles by the hand of God I will R and not grow TI when all is my heart for the Lord is never wey his ways are beyond my thought I will trust in him with all my heart and I will rest upon his promise paent be our way and I will SAR on wings like eagles H by the hand of God I will run and not grow tired you st my call for the Lord is never we his ways are beyond my thought I will with all my heart okay well the service is coming to a conclusion um the Holy Spirit has been speaking you know through Vlad you know that if we are still walk in this world without God you know God he can give us a new heart he can give us a new heart and you can share that message with your friends you know those that are not walking with Christ to tell them that God can give you a new heart and um does anybody have any needs and I'm pretty sure the church knows that to or like after the service there's going to be a a church meeting so we're all just going to kind of hang out but um I guess let's pray amen Lord God we thank you for the service tonight Lord that you were speaking to us Lord God lord and thank you God for saving us Lord thank you for saving us from this world God and help us Lord God to not be sitters but to be doers of your word God because you guys gave God you you uh gave us that new Heart Lord in our life and let us share this good news with others may your name be praised and glorified in Jesus name we pray amen thy father 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 forgive us sins we forgive those who sin against us lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from the evil one for your your Power Glory Forever Yours amen Lawrence you have to put those words up [Laughter] brother